


Cophetua

by Jael (erynlasgalen1949)



Category: Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-14
Updated: 2012-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-31 04:47:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 26,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/340048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erynlasgalen1949/pseuds/Jael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The long Ages of an immortal life sometimes bring the opportunity for second chances. The trick is having the wisdom to make the most of them. Thranduil; OFC. Romance/Drama "Adult"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Dreams of Trees

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is a work of derivative fiction based on the characters and world of JRR Tolkien. I merely borrow them for a time, for my own enjoyment and, I hope, that of my readers. I am making no money from this endeavor. Beta readers for this story are Lexin and IgnobleBard.

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/jael_beruthiel/pic/0000qybr/)

 

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/jael_beruthiel/pic/0001d69c/)

**Cophetua**

_'Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim,  
When King Cophetua loved the beggar maid!'   
Romeo and Juliet. ACT II Scene 1._

**Chapter One: The Dreams Of Trees**

_"The trees they do grow high, my love,  
The leaves they do grow green,  
And the time is gone and past, my love  
That you and I have seen . . ."_

_Traditional English Folksong_

Last night she dreamed she went again to the _Emyn Duir._ The old path wound away from her, through dark scented pines; her feet knew it well. Yet somehow, it seemed different, strange to her, for a change had come upon it. It looked narrow, unkempt, and she realized that the forest, always seeking to reclaim its own in the good days, and a dark menace in the latter ones, had crept back in, triumphing in the end. Tall beeches stood like gaunt skeletons, their bare pale limbs entwining in the sensuous embrace of dead lovers. She saw other strange trees among them, too; ancient elms and gnarled oaks that had not been there before, and their roots snaked out to block the path and catch at her unwary feet as she passed.

She had pressed on and found herself in a spot where the tree limbs met overhead in high arches. An airy palace had stood there once. As a trick of the moonlight, it had seemed that it existed still; that she might stare in the delicately traced windows and hear the sound of silvery laughter drifting from the halls. But a cloud had crossed the moon then, and she beheld the truth. Only a few rotted beams thrust up through the tangled undergrowth or lay fallen on the mossy forest floor. She saw before her a sepulcher, deserted. The voice she sought was heard here no longer; the place was home to her no more.

This vision had haunted her dreams since childhood and it made her heart ache, although she could not have said why.

A wind out of the west rustled the branches inside the wood now, calling to her, caressing her face like the hands of a lover . . .

"Stay out of those trees, girl, or you know what'll happen to ya."

The voice of her stepfather -- her uncle, really -- brought Sigrid back to reality with a jolt. Her hand closed reflexively around the fistful of grain she held, and then she opened it again, scattering it to the chickens she had been feeding. She looked at Wulf and shook her head.

"Lasses that go into that wood meet up with trouble. They say there's an evil Elf-king lives in there, and any girl that he lays hands on must leave him either her gold or her maidenhead. And I don't see you having no gold." He said this last with a leer.

Sigrid stared at him blankly. She could sniff the scent of home-brew on him already, at this hour of the day.

"Course I don't know why you're so eager to hang onto it," he went on. "Three fine young men have come to court you in this last year alone, and you'll have none of them. Olaf's boy -- now that would have been a useful match for me. His Dad and I could have joined our fields and had a decent crop for once, but no -- you're too fine to wed the likes of Rolf."

Sigrid swallowed nervously. This was becoming a sore subject between her and Wulf. She really could not say why she felt such a reluctance to let any of the boys of the settlement pay court to her, much less touch and fondle her as they did with the other girls. "I saw Rolf kicking his dog. And he smells." 

She also suspected that Rolf was the one who had gotten Olge with child last summer and then cast her aside. The poor girl had quickly been married off to a widower three times her age and her life was a misery now, with both a squalling infant and a dotard to tend. This made Sigrid like Rolf even less, but she said none of that to Wulf.

Her uncle grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her back against the rough boards of the shed. "Look, Missy, it's time you stopped acting like such a princess. I've been feeding your useless mouth for eighteen years, and I'm sick of it. Either you get yourself a husband to take you off my hands, or I'll find some other uses for that mouth." He grinned and moved in closer. "It's not such a bad idea y'know. Your Aunt's been looking mighty old and tired lately. And you're no blood kin to me."

Sigrid shrank back as far as she could, feeling Wulf's breath on her cheek and sensing the heat of his crotch nearly touching hers. She began to inch to her left until she felt free space at her back. She ducked away and ran toward the house. Wulf's laughter followed her as she fled.

When Sigrid came in the door, she found Asa sitting at the table, sifting the maggots out of a batch of flour. Wulf had been right about one thing, Sigrid thought with a pang. Her aunt had begun to look old. Thirty-eight years old next Yuletide, and her hair was greying and deep lines marred her face. Life with Wulf was not easy. Life for a woman of the Woodmen was never an easy thing, but having Wulf for a husband made it worse than most.

Sigrid looked away quickly to hide her distress from her aunt's keen eye, but she was not fast enough. "Come with me, child, now," Asa said, taking Sigrid by the hand and leading her out to the secluded kitchen garden behind the privy. "All right; out with it."

"Wulf," Sigrid said miserably and shook her head. How could she tell her aunt what had just passed? She felt a callused hand cupping her chin and she looked up into piercing brown eyes.

"Has he . . . been at you?"

Again, Sigrid shook her head. "No."

Asa's brows knitted. "Not yet, anyway. But I've been seeing the way he looks at you when you bend over the fire." She sighed. "Oh, my little Sigrid. I've loved you since the hour you were born. You're all I have left of my little sister -- my only real kin.

"To think such a joy could come out of such a grief! It was the fault of those fool men, you know, bringing your father home drowned from the river and plunking him down without a by your leave -- him with a wife seven months gone. It sent your poor Ma into labor at the shock of it, and there you were, born before your time, so blue and so still, and me and the midwife trying to get the bleeding stopped. Oh, my poor sister, how we tried, but I don't think she wanted to live, seeing your Pa gone like that. And when it was over, I turned to you, thinking I'd be sending you to the grave in her arms, but there you were, pink and wiggling. It was a miracle!"

Asa ran out of breath and Sigrid smiled. Her aunt never seemed to tire of telling the story.

"You started out so tiny, but you grew so fine and merry. You were like my own daughter -- the only child that the Allfather saw fit to give me." Asa paused and a cold, calculating tone came into her voice. "But Wulf's my husband; the only one I'll ever have. I don't want to lose him, not even to you. I love you, Sigrid, but, unless you're willing to take yourself a husband right quick, I think that for all our sakes it's best if you were to be leaving us now."

Sigrid nodded slowly, unable to muster even sadness. Her aunt spoke true. There was no life for her here. There never had been. 

"I'll leave some cram out on the table tonight. And a few coppers. It's precious little but it's all I can do. May the Lady Starkindler protect you, child!"

* * *

That night, Sigrid lay on her pallet until the grunting and creaking from behind the curtain that concealed the bed Asa and Wulf shared had died away and the snoring began. She rose, already fully dressed and took up the small bundle of her spare clothing and belongings. She found the cram on the table, wrapped in cloth. Sigrid's hand wavered over the three pence that lay beside it. She did not know where she was going, or how she would live when she got there, but something in her heart told her not to take what little was left to her aunt. At the last, she left the pennies lying and let herself out the door, letting the latch fall silently behind her.

It was late summer and the night was warm. The trees whispered to her as she walked down to the river. She stood on its banks, watching the waters flow past. Which way to go? To the south, the Celduin plunged between banks covered in tall trees. She felt safe under the comforting leaves and wished to remain.

But to the north, where the trees thinned out and died away, she had heard tell of a long lake. One or two of the settlement men had been there and brought back tales of a town resting on pilings out in the water. She had not even a coin to toss to help her in her choice.

She stood on the banks, indecisive. _North,_ the trees whispered, and a warm wind from the south seemed to push her gently. Her heart agreed. She nodded and headed upstream, leaving the shelter of the forest behind and moving silently under the wide, starlit sky.

* * * * * * *


	2. Mae Govannen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sigrid arrives in Laketown and meets a familiar face . . .

**Chapter Two: Mae Govannen**

_"Well met, well met, oh maiden fair,  
Pray tell me whether you know  
My one, my dear, my own true love?  
She is dead, sir, long ago . . ."_

_Traditional English Folksong_

 

Sigrid traveled north along the banks of the Celduin for three days. She had left the trees far behind, and the swift river ran through wide grasslands. After the first night, she moved by day, finding dense thickets of brush to lie down in at night, where she lay wrapped tightly in her threadbare cloak. The first nights alone had terrified her, and she spent them jumping at every stray sound of an owl or a night insect. But after a day or so, her foot-weary exhaustion sent her off into a dreamless sleep. 

Early in the fourth day, she began to hear a great roaring sound to the north and the river seemed to pick up speed as it ran past her. Eventually it revealed itself as a huge waterfall tumbling down from a high plateau. Sigrid found a portage trail that took her to the top, and at the summit, she found herself on the shores of a long lake that stretched off northward into distant hills.

Being on the left-hand shore, she had no choice but to head north along the beach. It was the right way, for she could see, far off, a speck on the water and the haze of smoke rising from a town. By the time she reached it, it was late afternoon and the sun had sunk low in the western sky. She was dirty and footsore, and her cram had run out the day before.

Another river, not so wide or swift as the Celduin, came in from the northwest, emptying into the lake and blocking her path. On the other side, she could see a guard hut and a wooden causeway that led out to the town. It looked to be a goodly sized town. Surely there would be well to do folk there looking to hire a maidservant with a strong back and a willing hand.

On the shingle sat rafts of lashed barrels and two boats -- the sort Sigrid was used to on the river at home. She looked around her and saw no one about. What harm if she used one to get across to the northern bank? She took one of the boats and paddled across the river, carefully beaching the craft on the other side. She headed toward the causeway.

"Hey, you! Yes, you, lass! Who gave you leave to use that boat?"

"I meant no harm, sir. Merely to get across." Sigrid saw three men coming down the beach from the guardhouse, and she noticed a look exchanged among them.

"It so haps that it was my boat, and I charge a fee for the use of it," one said, and the others nodded, smirking. "What now have you to give me?"

She had nothing, and she began to regret the pride that had made her leave the pennies on her aunt's table. "Forgive me, I meant no offense. I will find work in the town and repay you, if only you will let me pass."

"Not good enough," the man said. 'There is a fee for the boat, and a toll for the bridge. If you have no coin, we will take that toll in favors of a tenderer kind. A kiss or two for me and my mates -- and perhaps a feel of them pretty bubbies for me, since it was my boat you were using." The man's two companions nodded eagerly.

"No. Let me pass or let me go." The very thought of being handled by these louts filled her with disgust.

"Don't be such a princess," the man leered. "It's nothing you won't be doing in time, anyway. Lasses of a mind to be 'friendly' earn far more coin in the taverns -- and in the private houses from what I hear tell."

Sigrid shook her head and made as if to turn away. "I said no. Now let me be!"

But the man had hold of her, grabbing at her dress and trying to clutch at her bosom while the others looked on, laughing. Sigrid struggled and pulled free. In the process, she lost hold of her bundle of clothing, which came undone and strewed out on the ground. She tripped and went down herself, falling to her face and tasting dirt.

"What is this ill thing? Stop it immediately!"

She heard a new voice. A deep one, used to giving orders from the sound of it. The laughter of the men ceased suddenly and they moved off. Sigrid turned her head to the side and saw the legs of horses like a thicket of young saplings. A mounted group.

"Churls! Has it come to this in latter days? That you would trouble a woman upon the road? Explain yourselves!"

"She used a boat, my lord . . ." one of the men said. "We required payment."

"Liar! That boat belongs to one of my own people. My gold rebuilt this town. My blood rebuilt it. And you would ask payment from those who wish to enter it? Get out of my sight!"

Evidently, they had listened, for Sigrid heard the sound of footsteps beating a hasty retreat. And she heard another set, getting down from the horse and moving on the path beside her. "Truly, Galion, I wonder why I ever thought to help these Mortals." From the corner of her eye she saw pale hands gathering up her scattered belongings, and she blushed to think of a gentleman gazing upon her meager possessions, much less her one spare shift and her clouts. "Are you unhurt, lass?" 

Sigrid raised her head from the dirt to see a pair of feet clad in boots of softly draped leather. Her eyes traveled upward, taking in tightly fitted linen trousers and a long fingered hand held out to her. There was a great signet ring on the forefinger of this hand, with a stylized oak leaf upon it. She took the hand and allowed her benefactor to help her to her feet.

Once standing, she raised her face for her first look at him, and she had to raise it high, for he stood a full head taller than the men of her village. Had she not already known he was a man of wealth from the mounted retinue, she would have seen it immediately from the quality of his clothing, for although he was dressed for travel, his riding jacket of deep green sueded leather was finely cut and the high collar was studded all about with tiny gold beads. They shone at his neck like a constellation of little stars and they matched his bright golden hair, which was bound back into two thin plaits behind his ears and held at the ends by tall bands of silver.

From his face, he looked to be no more than a youth, although a youth unlike the coarse oafs she was used to fending off. But the firm set of his lips and his masterful bearing spoke otherwise -- of a man seasoned by long years of command. Indeed, this was no Man, she realized, and the gently pointed ears confirmed it. An Elf stood before her; one of the Fair Folk her uncle had spoken of.

Their eyes met, and Sigrid found herself staring into the depths of Ages past. So fair, so wise, but so very, very old. 

"Elbereth!" His eyes shot open and she heard him draw in his breath sharply. His hand clasped convulsively around hers and hung on. "You will come with me!"

He said it in that very manner, as if it were a foregone conclusion. Then he seemed to remember himself and smiled lightly. "I cannot leave you out here upon the road, lass. You might come to more harm." Tossing her bundle of clothing to one of his men, he took her by the waist and set her sideways across the front of his saddle. Swinging up behind her, he motioned for the group to ride on.

"Shut your mouth, Galion, or a fly will go in," she heard him say. She felt grateful for the strong arms fencing her in as the big bay charger moved onto the wooden causeway. The waters of the lake, just past the railing, seemed very far below.

Sigrid cast a quick sidelong glance at the elf who rode beside them. His slate blue eyes were wide, and his brows were practically nestling in his dark hair. He was clad in the same green and brown leather as the one she was coming to think of as the lord, but not so richly detailed. He was some kind of trusted retainer, she supposed. The others, who rode behind, she deemed to be bodyguards. Galion, as the Elven-lord had called him, held her bundle in one hand, the reins of his mount in the other, and he stared unabashedly, making no attempt to conceal his amazement.

The eyes of the elf-servant were not the only ones upon her as the group made its way through the narrow streets of the town. There was, perforce little room in a town built upon pilings, and Sigrid could almost reach out and touch the shutters of the houses from her perch aboard the big bay stallion. She felt the stares of curious housewives from windows and doorways.

They came to a tall building on the edge of the market pool. The Elven-lord lifted her down as grooms rushed out to take charge of the horses. Others came, including a stout man who looked to be the innkeeper himself.

"I trust your journey was a safe and pleasant one, my lord," he said, bowing. "The delegation from Rhûn arrived yesterday and they await you. Your rooms are in readiness."

"My customary suite?"

"Yes, my lord, the ones overlooking the water. The beds have been readied for you and your man."

"See to it that the third bed is made up. This lady will be with us as well."

Sigrid saw the innkeeper's eyebrows shoot just as high as the Elven servant's had, but he recovered himself admirably.

She was rather surprised herself. "My lord," she whispered as the chambermaid led them up the stairs, "I do not think I . . ."

"Have you any other place to stay?" he asked bluntly. She shook her head. "Well, then, it is settled. Have no fear, lass . . . ah, what is your name?"

"Sigrid," she murmured shyly.

"You will have your own bed, Sigrid, and I, Thranduil Oropherion, give you my pledge that neither I, nor any that is mine, shall trouble you in it."

"Not cursed likely!" she heard the servant, Galion, mutter under his breath.

The rooms were clean and pleasant, with a sitting room that had a view of the lake. While Thranduil conferred with the chamber wench and pressed some gold into her hand, Sigrid looked around. She had never seen anything quite so grand; not even the house of the village headman.

Within a few minutes, footmen arrived bearing a tub and buckets of hot water. "I will attend you, Sire," Galion said, beginning to direct the footmen to the largest bedchamber where Thranduil would stay.

"No, Galion, I plan to spend the next hour with the delegation from Rhûn. You may join me or spend the time in the tavern drinking that horse urine you call ale. I thought Mistress Sigrid would like the chance to refresh herself first. Or are you suggesting that I smell like a horse myself?"

"Of course not, Sire." Evidently this manservant was careful with his tongue, although to Sigrid, he still looked dubious of the situation.

"Is this agreeable to you, lass?" Thranduil said, directing the footmen to a smaller side room.

She nodded. How could it not be? A real bath with hot water all to herself? At home, she swam in the river in the warmer months and in the winter had to wipe herself down from a basin of tepid water, all the while trying to avoid the leering eyes of her uncle.

"Very well. We shall dine when I return." He left, along with the footmen.

Sigrid went into her small bedchamber and stripped off her travel-begrimed dress with a grateful sigh. She stepped into the tub and crouched in the hot water, using the ewer to pour it over her hair. She found a cake of fine white soap beside the tub, and she made use of that as well, to scrub away the dirt of the past days. Cleanliness was such a relief, and as the water turned dark, she realized she must have been quite a sight, with her filthy tangled hair and her dirt smudged face. How she must have smelled to those two refined elves, she did not care to think.

The water soon became so dirty that she did not care to tarry long, despite the comfort of the heat on her sore limbs. A towel had been laid out along with the soap, but once she had dried herself she could not stand the thought of putting on her filthy, sweat-stained dress again. Her other dress was in her bundle, out in the parlour, along with her other things. Taking the blanket from the bed, she wrapped it about herself and stepped out of her room.

She found the chamber wench laying the table with silver utensils and goblets. "Where are my things?" Sigrid asked, looking about the room.

"Your lord had me take them away for washing and mending, and he told me to do the same with the dress you had on once you were out of it." At Sigrid's look of dismay, she continued. "Don't you worry, though. I've a dress ready for you, along with a fresh shift. And a night dress, too, for tonight. You won't have to sleep naked."

"You can procure these things so quickly?"

The girl laughed. "When the Elvenking gives us gold and tells us to do something, we do it, with no question or backtalk."

"The Elvenking?"

"You didn't know? Well, I suppose not. He isn't much of a one for state in these days, although Master innkeeper tells me he came with his entire army two hundred years ago. But if you want my opinion, the story about the dragon burning the town is a tale for old wives. Dragons are just a fable meant to frighten silly girls out of their virginity."

"I thought the Elf-king was an old wives tale to frighten silly maids out of wandering in the forest," Sigrid said.

"Oh no, he's real enough. King Thranduil comes from the Wood almost every year to deal trade with the Easterlings of Rhûn, and of course he stays here, this being the best inn in Laketown. We look forward to his visits, for it means lots of fine wine to serve and tips in gold for all of us -- Anya and Katrin in the tavern especially, seeing to the special needs of the men of the east. They're lusty fellows, for all they dress strange. But never the king himself or that manservant of his." 

"Perhaps the Elves are not made the same way as Men are," Sigrid ventured.

This elicited a bawdy laugh. "Oh, I've seen a few of the raftsmen, and there's little difference. And after five years of turning over his room, I can tell you that the mighty Elvenking sometimes spoils his sheets of a night, just like the next man. But never a word or deed out of line from him, although there have been a few maids who might have welcomed it in my time, and long before, from what I hear. So I think you should be safe enough here tonight -- assuming you want to be safe, that is." The wench turned and rummaged through a basket nearby. "Here's a shift, and the gown I told you about. And a nicer comb, and a ribbon for your hair."

"Oh no," Sigrid said. "This is too fine." The dress was of soft wine colored wool, simply cut but elegant, the shift of fine linen.

The maid shrugged. "I'd've been happy to sell you one of mine, but this was what he wanted. I'd say you've fallen into a bit of good fortune, lass, at least for the next few days."

Sigrid took the clothing and went back into her chamber. She would far rather have been given a dress in which she could look for work as a domestic servant. This was the gown of a lady, and although it looked lovely once she had it on, it would be of little use to her after the next few days -- assuming this Elvenking kept her with him that long. How like a man used to riches! No thought of practicality at all. She combed out her hair and plaited it into a single braid down her back.

Thranduil and his servant had returned when she stepped back out into the parlour. If she'd wondered how she looked in the dress, she wondered no longer. "Very pretty," the king said with a smile. "Eh, Galion?"

"Yes, Sire," the elf said with a sidewise glance. He still looked puzzled, Sigrid thought. The chambermaid merely smirked.

"I almost regret I will not be able to show you off at dinner, but the common room stinks of pipeweed. I cannot abide it for long. We will dine here, if that is agreeable to you," he said, nodding at the already set table.

Sigrid was so ravenous that she would have taken dinner out on the barren lakeshore as long as she was fed. She nodded, as a group of footmen brought in trays of food. And such a feast it was! She saw a joint of venison, a roast chicken, and a baked fish, all borne on heated platters, along with several dishes of steamed summer vegetables and a basket of bread. And of course wine, both red and white in tall decanters.

Sigrid seated herself, but feared to begin eating, despite her hunger as the footmen and chamber wench bowed and left. A daunting array of silverware lay to either side of her plate. She was used to eating with her knife, at home, and occasionally she used a crude wooden spoon, but here, all was a mystery.

Calmly, Thranduil began to eat, using each utensil in turn, even though this led him to have no more than one bite of anything for the first few minutes. Gratefully, Sigrid watched and made note. The use of the silver with the three tines for spearing meat came with a little difficulty, but soon she was managing it with ease. There was one for the venison, and yet another for the fish, she noted. She felt relieved when Thranduil picked up a leg of chicken with his bare hand, offering her the other drumstick. This was more like it.

She narrowly avoided drinking the water from a small bowl in front of her, as Thranduil dipped his fingers in his own and wiped them on a linen cloth. Sigrid had indeed wondered how water with mint leaves floating in it would taste. With an amused look, the Elf-king raised his glass of red wine to her and winked. Sigrid tasted her own wine.

"Take care, lass," the servant, Galion, said quickly. "Dorwinion can be overpowering for one unaccustomed to it." 

That made Thranduil laugh out loud. "Galion speaks from vast experience," he said, with a conspiratorial chuckle.

Sigrid saw the other elf color slightly at the tips of his ears, but he seemed to accept it in good humor. She had not found it strange that a servant should be taking his meal with a king, for the two of them seemed to have an easy camaraderie between them. Galion's warning would not have been necessary, for she could tell that the wine was strong at her first sip. Drinking gingerly, she made the glass last the entire meal.

Even so, by the time the meal had ended and she could eat not another bite, the wine had gone to Sigrid's head. And had she not been tipsy, she was exhausted from the events of the day. Excusing herself, she went to her bedchamber as the footmen cleared the table and brought another bath up to the room.

"Rest well, lass, and may your dreams be sweet ones," Thranduil said as she went. Galion merely bowed, but he gave her a smile. Sigrid thought that perhaps she was winning him over.

She changed into the linen nightgown and cleaned her teeth with the shredded willow twig laid out on her washstand. The bed was soft, the sheets were clean, and the night breeze off the lake felt pleasant on her skin as it blew in the open window.

From the next room, there came the sound of water pouring, and she smiled as Thranduil began to sing. "When Spring unfolds the beechen leaf, and sap is in the bough; When light is on the wild-wood stream . . ."

She drifted off to sleep, lulled by the sound of splashing, and his lovely, lovely voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: The opening quote is a paraphrase of the traditional English folksong, The Mayor's Daughter Of Islington.
> 
> Thranduil's bathtub song is by JRR Tolkien, The Song Of The Ent And The Entwife, from The Two Towers. According to Treebeard:
> 
> _"There was an Elvish song that spoke of this, or at least I understand it. It used to be sung up and down the Great River. It was never an Entish song, mark you . . ."_
> 
> At the end of the Second Age, Thranduil and Oropher dwelt in the western glens of the _Emyn Duir,_ later to be known as the Mountains of Mirkwood. Thranduil would have known this tune.


	3. Chapter Three: As Shines The Moon In Clouded Skies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the night . . . the part we've all been waiting for. Warning for this chapter: Graphic sex

_"Sometimes she gallops o'er a soldier's neck,  
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats . . .   
And then, anon, drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes   
And being thus affrighted, swears a prayer or two and sleeps again." _

_Wm. Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet - Queen Mab_

 

She awoke to the sound of his voice. She listened for a time, unable to understand his words, but alarmed by his tone. At last, she rose and tiptoed barefoot into the next room, unable to ignore the pain in his voice. His door was ajar, and she slipped inside. 

Thranduil lay on his back with his eyes open and the sheet half covering his chest. His gold hair spread out across the pillow, and his head whipped from side to side as he muttered. _"Agar . . . gwannath . . .iuitho vegyl lîn! Nae . . . Adar nîn!"_

She approached cautiously. "My lord? What ails you . . .?" He made no answer, and it became apparent to her that he did not see her, obviously in the toils of some evil dream. His voice rose and fell, becoming practically a sob. She said, "My lord, you must awaken." 

He did not hear her, and unable to bear the sight of his distress anymore she shook his shoulder, timidly at first and then harder. He came to with a gasp. His eyes snapped into focus and his hand shot out, clasping around her wrist with a grip like iron. Just as quickly, his eyes softened again as he saw her face. "You come to me . . .?" he said with a hesitant smile. 

"You spoke in your sleep, my lord," she whispered. "You seemed in fear." 

His face fell again. "It is an old memory, of no importance." He did not let go of her hand, though. 

They stared at each other silently for a long time. Sigrid found herself fascinated by the way his eyes glittered in the darkness. He seemed to be transfixed as well, although what he saw in her eyes she could not begin to guess. 

At long last, Thranduil swallowed heavily and licked his lips. "Sweet one, my pledge of safety does not extend to this bed, merely your own. You might wish to get back to it. That is, if you do not intend to stay here until morning. I am made of flesh and blood, not moonlight and star dust. And even Elven flesh has its limits." 

Sigrid understood the import of his words, and she agreed with the wisdom of them. But she could not force herself to either move or speak, nor to rise from the side of the bed where she sat. Something about this beautiful, compelling being drew her heart like a lodestone, and she would stay, no matter what he would require of her. 

Without a word, he brought her hand up and put it to his cheek. His skin was as smooth and beardless as her own, but the muscles beneath that skin felt as hard as steel, tempered by the constant show of grim strength. "You see? This is flesh," he whispered. 

Still clasping her wrist, he moved her hand down to his chest. She could feel the measured rhythm of his heartbeat under the ribcage, slow at first, but speeding up beneath her palm. "And this . . . flesh." 

He took her hand lower still, down below where the sheet covered him. She felt for the first time, the rigid length of him; the evidence of his need for her. "Flesh . . ." 

Oh yes, she thought; flesh indeed. This would pierce her body, and by all rights she should be afraid, but she was not. She could only stare down into his unearthly beautiful face, as hypnotized as a bird caught in the eye of a snake in the old wives' tales of her youth. Her rational mind, the part trained by Asa, demanded shrilly of her what she thought she was doing; she was no common slut to be giving herself to a perfect stranger! Yet, her heart said the opposite, and her body felt an emptiness that cried out to be filled.

"You will stay?" he whispered, and she nodded, wondering if she had gone mad. "Oh, _Rodyn_ . . ." he groaned, and pulled her down to him. 

Before she had a chance to think, he had rolled on top of her. His trembling hands undid the ties of her night dress and forced it down off her shoulders. Bare skin joined to bare skin, and she realized that he had been naked beneath that sheet. He rained kisses upon her neck, her breasts, her belly, laying siege to her body with his lips and hands. His erection pressed insistently against her thigh. She could not help tensing as he pushed her legs apart. 

"Forgive, me, sweet one; you make me forget." He paused and put his first and middle fingers into his mouth, wetting them. He probed her with them one by one, easing and making her ready for himself. She gasped as he found a sensitive spot with his thumb and stroked slowly. 

"Oh, please . . ." she moaned. 

"Me?" he whispered softly. 

"Yes . . . you!" 

He positioned himself between her spread thighs and guided the tip of his hardened flesh to her entrance. He lowered himself to her chest, his breath soft against her face. 

"The maiden dies now. Breathe out that last breath into my mouth, as I claim you." He stopped her lips with his own as he pressed forward. 

He was big, and she felt pain as he took her, slowly forcing his way ever deeper. But it was no more than she could bear, and her very body cried out to be filled to its limit. 

_"Na vedui_ . . ." he sighed, when he had fully sheathed himself and they were joined tightly together. "A perfect fit." 

She could only lie trembling, passive, as he began to rock his body into hers. The pain of invasion disappeared, to be replaced with a slowly building heat. Lost in passion, her elven lover began to murmur endearments in that strange, lilting tongue. Such lovely sounds, to match the lovely sensations he dealt her body. "Come with me, sweet one," he whispered. "I will wait for you. Come with me . . ." 

She felt it approaching as he cupped her buttocks in his hands and pulled her even closer to him. She wrapped her arms around the small of his back and urged him on. It began as a melting in the core of her belly and spread, until she felt as if she had flown apart. She moaned and gripped his shoulders. As her shuddering pulsation died away, she felt him tense and thrust into her hard. He buried his face against her neck, stifling his cry of release. 

"Oh, my lord . . ." she breathed, stroking the golden head with the palm of her hand. 

"Thranduil," he muttered sleepily into the hollow of her throat. "Anyone in my bed must call me Thranduil. It is a rule of mine. You did well, sweet one. Sleep now." 

They lay together, still entwined as he softened and slipped from her. His breathing became more regular, and soon she knew he slept. "The Elf-king has had my maidenhead after all," she thought lazily as sleep claimed her as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author's Notes:**
> 
> _Sindarin:_ English translations:   
> _Agar . . . gwannath . . .iuitho vegyl lîn! Nae . . . Adar nîn!_ : Blood . . . death . . . draw your swords! Alas . . . my father!   
> _Na vedui_ : At last   
> _Rodyn_ : Valar, gods


	4. Chapter Four: But Will You Love Me Tomorrow?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the cold light of dawn, Thranduil and Sigrid face some repercussions. Warning for this chapter: Graphic sex

_"Oh love is teasing, and love is pleasing,  
And love's a treasure when first it is new . . ." _

_Traditional English Folksong_

 

Sigrid awoke in the Elf-king's bed as the first glow of dawn began to brighten the room. Through the open window she could hear the sound of the water lapping at the base of the pilings far below. At first she felt disoriented, for she had spent the previous night in a poplar thicket on the banks of the Celduin. Then she sighed, as she remembered all that had passed. She heard the sound of steady breathing from the bed beside her. 

Thranduil lay asleep on his back, eyes open, one arm thrown carelessly back behind his head. On his face was a contented smile. 

Sigrid could not help but smile too. He looked like a big, golden tomcat stretching out to sleep in the sun. She marveled at the beauty of him. His skin was not so much pale as luminous in the faint morning light, and his face and chest were devoid of any hair, save for only a dusting of gold at his armpit. The muscles of his arms and shoulders were well developed for one of such an elegant build. He could almost be a Woodsman, but Sigrid doubted that Thranduil had ever felled a tree. No, it was more likely a sword he wielded, rather than an axe. Strange lettering, pricked out in blue ink, marked both his biceps and his left breast. Sigrid could not read, other than to make the sign of her own name, a skill proudly taught to her by her aunt and much mocked by Wulf as useless in a woman, and she wondered idly what these symbols on the king's body might mean. 

No, the elves were not so different from mortal men, she thought as she ran her eyes down his belly past his navel, to the manly member, now lying quiescent on its nest of silky golden hair. Had this alien flesh given her such joy last night? She curled down closer to examine him. Her eyes drank in the beauty of it; the tender bud-like tip and the firm sac below, with its precious cargo. And even as she watched, it seemed to grow. 

She glanced up to see his eyes in focus, and he grinned at her. "Someone was caressing me with her eyes." 

Sigrid blushed to the roots of her hair. 

" _Rodyn,_ sweet one!" he whispered. "Do you know how beautiful you are?" 

Her heart leapt within her at his words. Struck mute with emotion, she reached out a tentative hand to stroke his side, his hip, coming ever closer to that which fascinated her. 

He drew in his breath at the contact. "Yes . . . you may touch it. Please . . ." 

She put out a finger to stroke lightly along the shaft, circling the velvety tip and teasing the little blade of flesh below. Emboldened, she took him into her hand, delighting at the ever increasing girth and the way it twitched against her encompassing palm, like a wild thing seeking its freedom. 

"Ai! You must leave off, or I will disgrace myself," he gasped. "I want to spill it in you. Come here!" 

She moved upward, stretching out her body against his smooth side. In a trice, he had topped her and had her pinned, his big hands kneading her breasts and his knee forcing her legs wide. 

"You turn me into a beast, little one," he said, laughing. He stopped her mouth with a kiss and then thrust his tongue deep as he pressed forward below. 

She braced for pain as he breached her, but she was still slick from before and he slid in deep. The pleasure came almost immediately this time. "Oh . . . You pierce me to my heart!" 

Sigrid had always been well aware of what passed between men and women, for she had shared a room with Wulf and Asa since childhood and was familiar with the noises in the night. She had even deduced that there might be some joy in the act, although it had seemed quick and brutish. But nothing could have prepared her for this! 

Was it always so overpoweringly sweet, she wondered, as this wonderful being took his pleasure of her? His eyes had gone smoky; his breath was ragged in her ear. He alternated between whispering sweet words she could not understand and raining soft kisses on the tips of her ears. 

Again, she felt the joyful warmth building up inside the core of her, as he took the tip of her ear gently in his teeth. The ears seemed a special spot to him, and she drew back his golden hair and stroked the tip of his ear with her fingertip. The effect was immediate; he groaned and pushed deep into her, bringing on her own sweet explosion. 

" _A, . . . le hannon,_ " he whispered, when his breath had returned to him.

"What does that mean?" she asked softly. 

"I am thanking you. Or perhaps I am thanking the _Belain_ for bringing you to me." He gently withdrew from her and pulled the sheet up around the two of them, holding her close to his chest and laying his chin on the top of her head. "You are as beautiful as the day, my dear one." 

They must have dozed then, for the next she knew, she heard footsteps on the wooden floor and the creak of the door being pushed fully open. 

"The sun in risen, Sire. Time to . . ." The other elf, Galion, entered bearing a tray. He froze at the sight of them. Consummate servant that he was, he did not drop his tray. Only a slight rattle of the teacup betrayed his shock. " _Man agorech, Thranduil?_ " he hissed. " _Le pen-inn?!_ " 

Thranduil leapt out of the bed like a shot. He grabbed his man-servant by the shoulder and hustled him from the room, treating Sigrid to a flash of bare back and buttocks. The door shut, and she could hear the sound of a heated conversation from the next room, one voice outraged, the other, her Elven-lord's, low and earnest. 

Asa had always told her that eavesdroppers rarely heard anything good about themselves, and even if Sigrid had been tempted to ignore this good advice, it would have been to no avail, for the conversation took place in the language of the elves, of which she now understood only two words. Instead, she searched through the tumbled bedclothes for her night dress and pulled it back onto her body. 

By the time she had made herself decent, the door opened again and in came Thranduil still gloriously naked and looking a little sheepish. "All is well. I have placated my valet, and it is safe for you to come out." 

"I would rather go to my room and dress, my lord, but . . ." She looked down at her thin nightgown. 

"Ah, well . . . yes." He went to the wardrobe and pulled out a wool dressing gown. "Here, put this on." 

He helped her into it, tenderly folding back the sleeves and smoothing her hair back over her shoulders. The hem of the robe puddled on the floor beneath her by at least six inches. 

"I look like a little girl stealing her mother's clothing and playing dress-up," she said ruefully. 

Thranduil pulled the blanket from the bed and knotted it around his middle. "No, you look just like a queen. Now come with me. Be brave. Galion will not bite." 

Out in the parlor, Galion was laying out baskets of rolls on the sideboard, along with the tea. He turned to the two of them with a look that almost made Sigrid laugh despite the situation. He had gone from astonishment to outright gape.

To her surprise, he bowed to her. " _Hiril nîn._ " 

"In Westron from now on, Galion," Thranduil said gently. "Until Mistress Sigrid can understand our tongue." He took her to the door of her chamber. "I will be in conference all morning. Will you be well here by yourself?" 

"I can amuse myself for a few hours, my lord," she replied. 

"Thranduil," he whispered into her ear. "My name on your lips is like a caress to me." He kissed her chastely on her forehead and let her into her chamber. 

Sigrid took her time dressing, and by the time she re-emerged, Thranduil and Galion were gone. She had tea and a few rolls; after last night, she was unusually hungry. After a time, she grew restive and decided to take some air. 

Outside, it was a pleasant summer day. The sun shone brightly, glinting off the tiny ripples in the market pool, where a few boats floated, including the large, brightly painted craft of the Easterling delegation. They must have rowed it up the Celduin from the Sea of Rhûn, and Sigrid marveled at the mental picture of the Easterling sailors carrying that huge boat up the portage path. 

She amused herself by looking at the wares the vendors' booths had to offer, although, having no money, looking was all she could do. When that began to pall, she made her way through the narrow streets to the southern side of the town, and stared out over the lake, back the way she had come. Off to the south, she could see and hear the falls, and much closer, she spied a glint of gold and shifting colors beneath the surface of the water, at a spot where the lake birds seemed wont to circle. 

She spent a while, enjoying the sunlight and the cool breeze off the lake as it blew back her hair. Indeed, autumn was coming, for after a time she grew chilled and sought to return to the inn. 

Coming back into the room, she met the chamber wench with a pile of crumpled bed sheets in her arms. The girl's face took on a sly look when she spied her. "Well, well! You work quick, don't you!"

"What do you . . .? Oh . . ." Sigrid blushed when she realised what the wench held.

"Oh, yes, little Miss 'I'm-So-Innocent.' The Elvenking has spoiled his sheets again, only this time he had some help, from the look of things. What I'd like to know is, what do you have that the rest of us don't?" The wench laughed nastily. "Whatever it was, you don't have it any more. Silly girl. You seemed mighty eager to lie down and spread your legs for the pretty Elf in spite of all that 'touch-me-not' out past the causeway." 

Sigrid shook her head. She could not explain her wanton behavior to herself, much less this other girl. 

Before she could speak, someone cleared his throat from the doorway. "That will be enough. You are dismissed. We will ring if anything further is required." 

The wench dropped a curtsey and left quickly with her armload of sheets. 

" _Le hannon_ , Galion," Sigrid said shyly. 

"I hesitate to ask the circumstances under which you learned that term," Galion replied dryly. But his face seemed kindly enough. 

Sigrid sighed. "Forgive me, Master Galion. I know that you cannot approve of me very much." 

"You?" said Galion, seeming genuinely surprised. "Oh, no -- you mistake me. It is Thranduil whose actions I question. If my lord has any fault, it is that he often mistakes his own desires for wisdom. And sometimes, rarely, he is heedless of the consequences to others. I feared for you, lass. I still do, in my own way." 

"You have known him a long time?" 

"A very long time." Galion smiled then, and Sigrid thought he had a very beautiful face when he did so. "I am his valet, and his butler. Before that, I served as his esquire. And before that, we were boys together. I have been at his side through peace and war and suffered his foolishness and bad temper through all of it. Yes, I have known him a very long time." 

"I think you are fond of him, though," she said. 

He looked at her gravely. "I would die for him. I almost did, once, but that is another story," he continued, as if trying to lighten the tone. "And it is a good thing it was I who overheard that evil-minded wench troubling you. Else there would have been some temper shown." 

"You defended me well enough, Galion. For that, I am grateful." 

"If my lord loves you, then so do I," he said. 

Did he love her, she wondered, or was it just the passing infatuation of a man for a pretty new toy? Before she had time to ponder further, she heard a deep voice upon the stairs. "What is this talk of temper? I'll have no ill-tempered folk about me, for I have the sunniest of natures." 

Sigrid saw Galion purse his lips in a grin, quickly hidden as Thranduil came in the door. "Nothing, Sire. It is of no matter. How go the trade negotiations?" 

"Recessed until after the noon meal." Thranduil said. "I think the men of Rhûn will have the most favorable terms they have had in the last five decades, for I confess myself to have been a bit distracted this morning." 

"The blood is some other place than in your brain," Galion murmured. 

Thranduil merely snorted. "Cheeky devil! Make yourself useful and ring for the meal. I would like to have a word with Mistress Sigrid in private." 

She saw a look pass between the two men as Thranduil led her into his chamber. No sooner had he shut the door than he drew her to him and kissed her hungrily. "I could not concentrate all morning for the pictures in my head," he whispered. "You above me, riding me like a Meara; you and me playing stag and doe. I will teach you all these things and more, but for now . . ." 

He pushed up her skirts and unlaced himself. He bent his knees to get beneath her and she could feel the tip of him blindly butting against her until it found the spot and slid in. "It knows its way home," he laughed, as he pierced her ever deeper. "Put your arms around my neck, my love. There, that's the way. Now wrap your legs around my hips. _A, Rodyn_! That is so good!"

Borne aloft by his arms around her waist and his flesh inside her, she let her head fall onto his shoulder. He wore a doublet of soft velvet, scented of herbs and lavender. The bare skin of his neck smelled of green grass and leaves. It was impossible to resist being swept along by the force of his passion, and soon she clenched around him in bliss. She saw him bite his own lip as he flooded her. 

"That was quick," he whispered. "But satisfying." 

"Yes, my lord, very satisfying," she sighed. 

"Thranduil," he corrected. "What did I tell you to call me?" 

"We are not in your bed. We are standing upright in the middle of your chamber." 

He laughed, walked three steps, and the two of them toppled down onto the mattress. "There, now we are in the bed." 

"Mmmm . . . Thranduil. Why . . .?" 

"I gave Galion my solemn promise that I would keep my clothes on until this evening, and so I have." He winked, looking just like a mischievous boy. "I am a much more wily negotiator than anyone gives me credit for." 

They lay happily together for a time. "The trade meetings will conclude tomorrow, and you will come with me back to the Wood." He paused and continued more tentatively. "You will return with me to my home, will you not, sweet one? My valet reminds me that I must not simply assume that I have the right to command you in this, so I ask you humbly. For some reason, Master Galion feels he must function as my conscience in this matter." 

"Are you in need of a conscience?" 

"My valet seems to think so. This morning he went so far as to accuse me of thinking with my _gweth._ " 

"No matter whence comes the invitation, I will accompany you, gladly." 

"Good," he laughed, "because it might have caused a problem with the good folk of Esgaroth had I been forced to tie you to my saddle and drag you back to my cave kicking and struggling. They tolerate much from me, but not that." 

"Do you do this often, then? Spy young maidens upon the road, seduce them, and carry them back to your realm to have your way with them?" 

He looked at her and his expression turned solemn. "Often? No -- never before until now. Do you not understand? I love you. I have loved you since the first moment I laid eyes upon you." 

At that moment she found herself in agreement with Galion; she would gladly have died for Thranduil.

* * *

And so it came to pass that three days later, Sigrid found herself riding through the Wood of Eryn Lasgalen behind her new lord. Rather than being placed before him on the saddle, his elves had rigged a pillion for her so that she might have more comfort on the journey. She rode with her arms around his waist, and the eyes of the Wood-elves who lined the path along the Forest River to welcome home their king were every bit as curious as the townsfolk of Esgaroth had been. 

Up ahead, the trail dropped, heading through soldier-like ranks of beech trees down to a stone bridge that spanned the river. Beyond, she could see great gates into the side of the mountain. Here would she live, henceforth, underground away from sun and wind. But rather than looking like the mouths of hell, it welcomed her. She felt as if she had come home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Translations from Sindarin:**  
>  _Man agorech, Thranduil? Le pen-inn?_ : What have you done, Thranduil? Have you lost your wits?   
> _Belain_ : Sindarin word for the Valar  
>  _Rodyn_ : Gods  
>  _Hiril nîn_ : My lady


	5. Chapter 5: All That Heaven Allows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Thranduil finds a creative use for wildflowers and Sigrid learns some secrets about his past life.

_"All my past life is mine no more,  
The flying hours are gone . . .   
Then talk not of inconstancy,  
False hearts, and broken vows;  
If I, by miracle, can be  
This live-long minute true to thee,  
'Tis all that Heav'n allows." _

_John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester_

 

Sigrid lay on her back in the soft grass at the side of the stream. The day was warm, and Thranduil had stripped off his clothing and jumped into the water, shouting for Sigrid to join him. After being assured that the water was quite comfortable, Sigrid had undressed and waded in, only to let out a squeal and retreat hastily to the bank, saying, "That was not funny, Thranduil!" Evidently elven and mortal standards of 'comfortable' differed. 

The first summer after she had come to the wood, Sigrid had been timid about removing her clothing outdoors. "What if one of your elves should chance to spy us?" she had asked nervously. 

"This spot is known as my private garden," Thranduil had reassured her. "My people know better than to disturb their king at his sport. Anyone that does will find his ears in a flask on my desk." 

Her eyes had grown large at this, and he laughed. "Sweet one, that is a figure of speech merely. Can you not tell when I am jesting? After all this time, my people know my ways and I theirs. They take care not to incur my displeasure." 

"When the king is content, the people are happy," she ventured. 

"That is quite true," he replied, with what she was coming to look upon as his Wood-king smile. And indeed, the mood in the palace was a cheerful one, for all that the elves still tended to look at her as if she were some kind of curiosity. 

After splashing about for a time, Thranduil had gotten out of the water and joined her on the bank in the sun. He now lay with his head on her stomach, idly twining wood-violets into her pubic hair. 

Overhead. fluffy white clouds drifted through a patch of open sky. Sigrid amused herself by picking shapes out of them. The latest resembled a winged serpent. "Thranduil," she said lazily, "was there ever truly such a thing as a dragon? Or was it just an old wives' tale told in Esgaroth to frighten the children?" 

"Indeed there were dragons, my love. And trolls, and goblins, and other things, both fair and foul. Arda was filled with magic in ages past. It is fading from the world now, as all things must." He sounded rather wistful, she thought. "Of course, I could have done without that dragon. I have seen two towns reduced to smoking ruins thanks to that vile worm. For such fell power to be gone forever from the world can only be a good thing." 

"You saw the beast with your own eyes?" 

He rolled over to face her and nodded. "I saw it up close. It is not an experience I would care to repeat." 

"Did you kill it?" 

He shook his head. "In the end, it was a man from Laketown who shot it down." He sighed. "I suppose it is meet that it was a mortal who did the deed. The glory of my people is passing, along with the magic of this world. And that is the way of things, too." 

Moved by the sadness in his voice, she stroked his shoulder, running her hand down to the tattoo on his left bicep. Over the past two years she had learned much of the language of the Wood-elves, and she had begun to be able to read the cirth and the tengwar also, but these marks on her lord's body remained a mystery. "What does this mean, my love? I try, but I still cannot make sense of it." 

"You would not be able," he said, "for they are written in a tongue far older than the Grey-elven, and in the Runes of Daeron, rather than the tengwar. This mark on the left means 'loyalty,' and the one on the right reads 'strength.' These words I wear to remind me of the duty I owe to the people I rule and protect." 

"And this one, on your chest?" 

She saw his eyes go shuttered as surely as if the portcullis had dropped on the water-gate that allowed the empty barrels to go down river from the cellars. "It is of no matter. An old pledge, merely." He did the same when he woke crying out in the night from dreams of some long-ago battle. This she knew, for she had learned the words for sword and blood, but to her grief, there were some memories Thranduil would not share, some places she could not go. She could only hold him until he slept again. 

He must have seen that she was troubled, for he kissed her. "I am old, beloved. I will not drag you down with the weight of the ages, for they are gone. You are here with me now, and that is all that matters." 

"And I could stay here forever, in this lovely spot, with you." 

"Then I shall make it so," he said softly and kissed her again. 

"I see my lord is fully recovered from the cold water," she said. 

"Very funny, mistress minx. The cold water has that effect on all of us. And what have I told you to call me?" 

"Thranduil. In your bed. Does that edict extend to this riverbank?" 

"Is it not our bed?" he said playfully. 

"Is there any spot, then, in this forest that has not yet been your bed?" 

He knitted his brows in mock confusion. "Now that you mention it, there are a few. And what a lovely quest it would make to rectify that oversight!" 

"Thranduil . . ." she said after a time. "You are going to crush the violets." 

"Mmmm . . . poor violets," he whispered. "Poor violets; lucky Thranduil . . ."

* * *

And yet, despite the happiness she took in the love of her Elven-lord, there was one thing that marred Sigrid's contentment. She betook herself to Thranduil's chief healer. 

"What brings you to me, Mistress Sigrid?" Nestalinde said placidly, a kind look in her fathomless grey eyes. "Is there aught amiss with you? For you seem the very picture of health to me." 

Sigrid hesitated. Of all of Thranduil's elves, Nestalinde was the most friendly to her, save for Galion of course. Even after all this time, she found some of the others looking at her strangely when they thought she did not see, although none of them was ever outwardly discourteous to her. And yet at the same time, Sigrid found this dark-haired elf-woman to be intimidating, for the others deferred to her, and even Thranduil himself seemed in awe of her. Master Galion had whispered to her one day that there was no one among them who could remember Nestalinde as a child. It was said that she had been among the eldest of the company when Thranduil's father, Oropher, brought the people east from Lindon. Sigrid had only the foggiest idea of how long ago these events were, but one look into Nestalinde's grave face told her that she was very old indeed. The concerns of one Mortal woman seemed paltry indeed in the face of the sorrows and wisdom of long ages. 

She took a deep breath for courage. "I have been with my lord Thranduil for over two years now, and yet I do not conceive." 

Nestalinde raised one dark brow. 

Sigrid blushed. "I can assure you that this is not for lack of . . . energy on the part of my lord." 

Nestalinde's lips pursed in what Sigrid could have sworn was a wry smile. "I daresay. Is this a sorrow to you?" 

"To me? No, but to my lord, surely. Does not every man desire heirs of his body?" In old memory, she could hear the taunts of Wulf, chiding Asa for her childlessness. He had been cruel, bringing Asa to tears often. Sigrid feared the taint ran in her own blood. "Nestalinde, am I barren? For I do not wish to disappoint my lord in any way." 

It seemed to Sigrid that she heard the elf-woman sigh. "No, my dear. The fault is not in you. It is in him. Thranduil waited almost three thousand years before he was blessed with a child, and I know it was a bitter thing for him to bear. For what male does not see the begetting of a child as an affirmation of his manhood?" 

Sigrid hoped that Nestalinde had not heard her sharp intake of breath. "He has an heir?" 

"Thranduil's son is a boon companion of King Elessar Telcontar, having fought with him in the war to defeat Sauron. Our Prince Legolas now rules his own Elven realm in Ithilien, east of Gondor." 

Sigrid fought to control her emotions, lest she betray them to this other woman. Why had no one told her this? 

"Sigrid," said Nestalinde, "it is not your fault. I doubt Thranduil is capable of a child by you. And even if it were possible, it will not be. It must not be." 

"They would be bastards," Sigrid said, bleakly. 

"You mistake me, Sigrid. We Elves love all children regardless of their origins. Our language did not even have the concept of 'bastard' until we met the Second Born." 

"Then it is because I am . . ." Sigrid waved her hands helplessly past her ears, "not of your kind. For I know I am not good enough that he should wed me." 

"Oh, no, dearest child, you are so wrong!" said Nestalinde. "I have known Thranduil all his life -- he was born into my hands, did you know that? As his healer, I know his heart as well as any, save perhaps Galion, and I know it is a grief to him that he must force you to be seen by others as his concubine. But he cannot wed you. There is the matter of the queen, his wife." 

"If he has a son, it stands to reason he must have had a wife," Sigrid said bitterly. "Do you say that she left him?" 

"No. She died." 

"If she is dead, where is the obstacle to his taking me to wife?" 

Nestalinde sighed. "Our kind holds that the bonds of marriage are between _faer_ rather than _rhaw._ The death of the body does not sever the bond. By our tradition, Thranduil is a married man and may not wed you lawfully before his people, no matter how much he might wish to do it." 

"That seems cruel," Sigrid said. 

"Aye, very cruel. Especially in this realm where so many have lost mates to war and the creatures of the Shadow -- even before they knew the joy of children. We have lost many good folk who sailed, seeking their re-embodied loved ones in Aman. Others remain here, solitary, for love of home and people. It has caused our king to question the wisdom of the _Belain._ " 

"Is it common, then, to take a lover?" Sigrid knew that rich men, and some poor ones too, would often take mistresses, although it was not precisely respectable. She had thought it was the same among the elves, especially for the king. 

Nestalinde shook her head. "I will not say that it is unknown for the lonely to seek comfort. But never openly." 

"Never?" Sigrid bit her lip. No wonder her lord's elves looked at her strangely. "They must think me a very trollop," she said. 

"No," said Nestalinde. "They think that Thranduil has lost his wits -- not that any would dare say him nay. You, they like, for the king has never been so content. Not since the death of his queen at any rate. And for that happiness, we are all grateful." 

Sigrid felt a heaviness in her heart. "Mistress Nestalinde, was she beautiful?" 

"Child, would you torture yourself?" 

Sigrid nodded. "I must know." 

It seemed to Sigrid that the Elf-woman's eyes bored into her, filled with pity . . . and something else. "Lalaithiel was as beautiful as the day," she said quietly. 

"How did she die?" 

Again, Sigrid could sense the reluctance to speak; the portcullis coming down, secrets being kept from her. "She died giving life to our prince." Nestalinde's face was somber. "So you see, Sigrid, even if Thranduil could get a child on you, he will not. He holds back that effort of spirit which, for us, is the making of a new life. He will not risk it. He will not risk losing you." 

Sigrid remained silent, pondering. 

Nestalinde sighed. "If this lack of children will be a sorrow to you, I will speak to Thranduil. I will insist he let you go." 

Sigrid shook her head quickly. "No. I know the day will come too soon when I age and he tires of me. I will go willingly then, but for now let me enjoy the time I have with my lord. Even if it means never holding a child of my own in my arms, and being seen always as his concubine, I will stay." 

"Sigrid, you do not know the way of Elves as yet. Thranduil will never send you away. He can be headstrong sometimes, and selfish when he wants something. But he is kind." Nestalinde furrowed her pale brow. "And I can tell you with all honesty that you have his heart. You have always had that, and you always will." 

"Until my death?" Sigrid looked at the elf woman in wonderment. There was something there, deep in that penetrating gaze that she could not puzzle out. Such a deep sadness. 

"No, my dear child. Until the end of all things . . ."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author's Note:**
> 
> Sindarin/English translations:   
> _Faer_ : spirit -- the Sindarin equivalent of _fëa_  
>  _Rhaw_ : body -- the Sindarin equivalent of _hroa_   
> _Belain_ : Gods, Valar


	6. Chapter Six: Leaves of Silver; Leaves of Gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The King goes south . . .

_'For the bonny lad is young, but he's growing . . . '_

_Traditional English Folksong_

 

"It's so big!" 

The Elvenking's mounted train had passed out of the Forest Gate on the western edge of the wood, and Sigrid beheld for the first time the tall chain of mountains the Elves called the Hithlaeglir. Although a wide plain and a river stretched in between, it seemed to her that she might reach out and touch them. The warm weather of spring had melted the snow in the forest, yet the eastern slopes of the mountains were still covered in white, their tall peaks shrouded in a mist of clouds. 

"It is said that they were taller still, before an ancient war broke the land," said Thranduil. "Some of the elves of the Great Journey found the sight of them too daunting, and Danweg's folk turned aside, to settle here in the Greenwood of old." 

"That showed great intelligence, if you ask me, which no one does," muttered Galion, who rode at their side. "Had the _Eluwaith_ shown the same perspicacity, Sire, your noble father might have spared himself the long trek back here." 

"You must forgive Galion his _Laegren_ pride," Thranduil chuckled, aside to Sigrid. "Galion, if that had happened, Elu Thingol would not have married so well, nor my cousin Celeborn married . . . ah, as he did." 

"You speak as if that were a bad thing, Sire," Galion said. Thranduil merely laughed. 

Sigrid let the two of them banter on, paying them no heed. She had other worries on her mind. Thranduil and his group were journeying south to Ithilien, where Sigrid would finally meet her lord's son, and the prospect of being seen and judged by this mysterious Prince Legolas filled her with trepidation. 

Sigrid rode her own horse now, at Thranduil's side. Riding was but one of the new skills she had mastered in the last ten years in Thranduil's court. She could read now, and write, and she spoke the tongue of the Elves so well that she sometimes thought in it rather than the language of her birth. When she looked into her mirror now, she saw a lady, although she still felt like the same humble forest girl playing a part in a mummery. 

What the elves of her lord's realm saw when she rode at his side or sat beside him at dinner, she could not have said. Always, she felt the weight of eyes upon her, eyes of shades in blue and grey, filled with curiosity and something else. Did they see a lady? Did they see a concubine? Did some, perhaps, see a friend? 

She rarely left Thranduil's side when he was at his leisure, but even she had been forced to find a way of filling up those hours when his duties took him from her. Back in her days with Asa, she had begun to learn to spin and weave, and she had pestered Thranduil to show her the halls where his folk produced the dyed silk that he traded with the Men of Rhûn and sent to the lands of the south. 

She had laughed outright when she saw the huge piles of aged spiderweb waiting to be spun and learned the source of his silken thread. 

"Hush, it is a great secret," he had told her, laughing himself. "There was a time when a Dwarf asked me if the great spiders of the Wood were tame or my pets, and he came closer than he knew. It was not so at the time, for they were all too numerous when the Shadow held sway over Mirkwood. We hunted them in those days to keep their numbers down, but since the fall of The Enemy and the burning in the Wood, we give them their own little sector and encourage them to breed. I find it a most ironic joke. Alas, they grow smaller with each generation, and soon I shall be forced to find another way of making my money." 

Sigrid had taken a hand at the weaving, and had become quite skilled at it, yet she took her greatest joy in the dying of the thread, using colors and compounds that the forest provided. Thranduil had been very pleased at the results of some of her experiments in mixing the dyes to create novel colors, and as she worked, she had developed friendships with some of the Elven artisans. Those, at any rate, respected her for more than the king's bed toy. 

She wore cloth of her own design now, dressed Elven-fashion, as it pleased Thranduil to see her. Her riding habit now was a subtle grey-green of her own mixing, with a split skirt over breeches that allowed her to sit astride. She looked over at Thranduil and smiled. His attire was the same green jacket he had worn when she first laid eyes on him. Elves did not seem to feel the need for change that Mortals did. 

"What are you smiling at, my love?" Thranduil asked, noticing her looking at him. 

"I am just remembering when we first met. How happy I felt when I rode home behind you." 

"It is a sweet memory for me too," he said. A wide grin split his face. "Galion, take Sigrid's reins and lead her horse. My love, come here. Ride pillion behind me, as you used to do." He held out his arms and drew her across to him. Sigrid settled herself on his horse's rump and put her arms around his waist. "Comfortable?" 

"Very comfortable, Thranduil," she whispered, nestling her cheek against his broad back. "But is this proper?" 

He laughed and looked about expectantly. "Well? I am waiting. Does not the sight of an elf-man riding in joy with his leman before the eyes of all bring on _Ardhon Meth_?" 

"No, Sire," Galion muttered. "The end of all things is not upon us. However, you may make a few Beornings swoon." 

"Then let them look, and let them swoon," Thranduil laughed. "I could ride like this all the way to Gondor." 

Sigrid flicked her eyes back over the rest of the mounted train and the troop of pikemen who marched as guards. Everyone's eyes were straight ahead, their faces impassive. If Thranduil wished to flaunt her, there were none among his folk who dared to speak otherwise. But how would it be seen when they reached Ithilien? 

After a time, Thranduil shifted in his saddle. "Riding in this fashion has one drawback," he said. "For I feel a sudden desire to stop and make camp early today." 

Beside them, Galion broke out into a fit of coughing. Sigrid saw Thranduil turn his head sharply. 

"My old wound, Sire," Galion said hastily. "And the cold wind off the mountains. It irritates my lung." 

"Indeed, Galion. I would be quite the ingrate to begrudge you a cough or two," Thranduil said amiably. 

Sigrid merely moved her arms higher about Thranduil's waist, for she had felt his need too. At this rate, it would be a long trip to Ithilien.

* * *

In the following days, Sigrid kept her hands higher, and the party made good time. It took a fortnight down past the tip of the great wood, and yet another week until they reached the cyclopean statues on either side of the Great River, which marked the northern boundaries of Gondor. Beyond the Argonath, as Thranduil told her they were called, lay a wide lake, which they crossed by means of huge rafts. This lake reminded Sigrid of the Long Lake, but the falls at the southern end of it, split by a tall spur of rock, dwarfed the falls of the Celduin. 

"It will be easier from here on," Thranduil said, as they and their horses carefully negotiated a steep and winding portage path on the western side of the falls. "The river becomes wide and deep enough for the barges that will carry our horses, and indeed, the land turns marshy. The going is best by water." 

As she watched the horses being led aboard and noted their discomfort at being upon the shifting decks, Sigrid asked, "Was there no other route we might have taken?" 

Thranduil nodded, and his face was grave. "We might have veered to the east and bypassed the lowlands, and indeed, I have taken that route in days long past. But I have no wish to see those lands again." 

"No, Sire, never again," Galion echoed, and his slate-dark eyes held a sadness that matched his king's. 

On the leg of the journey from Cair Andros to Ithilien, Sigrid put her foot down and insisted upon riding her own horse. This was the land of King Elessar. Things were done differently than in the Wood, and as much as she enjoyed the physical closeness with Thranduil, she was not about to embarrass his son by riding in behind her lover's saddle like some prize of war. Even so, as the woods of Ithilien closed in about them, she almost wished she could cling to Thranduil for comfort, for she feared the journey's end. 

"When first I saw these trees, over a hundred years ago, they were stunted, pitiful things," Thranduil said. "The creatures of The Enemy had laid their foul curse over all the land, and it was in agony. For an Elf, especially a Wood-elf, it was a hard thing to see. As much as the absence of my son grieves me, he has worked miracles here. I am very proud of him." 

"It would not come amiss for you to tell him that once in a while, Sire," Galion said. 

Sigrid saw Thranduil look to his side, where his valet rode, almost even with the two of them. Dear, kind, Galion, she thought. With the three of them abreast, it made it seem as if she might be just another servant rather than a person of dubiously special status. "Oh, yes, Galion," he laughed, seeming not affronted by the impudence, "you may be sure that on this visit I will be telling him that at every opportunity." 

The woods were beautiful indeed. Here in the south, the spring had further advanced. The woodland shrubs were in full bloom, with flowers of shades from white to dark crimson, and there were yet others with pale purple blooms filling the spring air with a sweet fragrance. The grass beneath the feet of their mounts grew a vibrant emerald. As they rode, Sigrid began to hear a faint singing coming from the treetops, growing louder as they progressed. Thranduil threw back his head and joined the song in his deep joyful baritone. _"When blossom like a shining snow is on the orchard laid; when shower and Sun upon the Earth with fragrance fills the air . . ."_

Sigrid began to hear a silvery tenor ringing out from among the other voices, louder than the rest. _"I'll linger here and will not come because my land is fair . . ."_

A turn in the path revealed a clearing. She blinked. A palace stood there, so delicate in its lines that it seemed almost to be an illusion, as if it belonged to the forest itself, made of leaf and air, rather than stone. A young man with pale flaxen hair stood on a broad terrace in front of the door. Not a man; an elf. 

Thranduil dismounted his horse and went to meet him, taking the steps at a bound. They stood staring for a moment and then embraced, the strange elf laying his cheek on Thranduil's shoulder. 

_"Ada."_

"My son." 

Sigrid watched, feeling her heart plummet. So this was Legolas. She could see Thranduil in him; there was no mistaking it, for the two of them together were like a sapling beside a mature tree. They were of a height, although Legolas had the more slender build and his hair was two shades lighter than his sire's bright gold. But his delicate beauty caught at her heart. This came from his missing half; his mother. She must have been exquisite to have produced such a son. Sigrid felt tears prickling at the edges of her eyes. 

She and Galion had dismounted and followed Thranduil. "It is good to see you once more, dear friend," Legolas said, breaking away from Thranduil and laying a hand on Galion's shoulder. He turned his mild gaze in her direction. 

"This, Legolas, is Sigrid," said Thranduil softly, but there was no mistaking his tone. "She is dear to me, son." 

If Legolas felt surprise, he showed not a hint of it. He took her hand and inclined his head graciously. "Well met, Mistress Sigrid." 

Oh yes, it was easy to see how a woman could lose her heart to him, Sigrid thought, looking into his pale blue eyes. Yet strangely, while she could appreciate his manly beauty, she felt not in the least moved by it. Her love and her passion were only for her lord. She stammered out a greeting, unsure of exactly what she said. Legolas was his father's son, and above all she could sense his underlying kindness. She no longer feared him, and that was enough. 

"You can let go of her hand now," Thranduil said gently. "Well, I like what you've done with the place. This terrace is new since last time, am I right?" 

"Twenty years gives opportunity for much change. This terrace is new, and the hedge of cypresses, and the new wing on the south side." 

"Nice detail on the balusters," Thranduil said. "You are one of the few elves I know who builds in stone." 

Legolas laughed. "Growing up as I did, I find I simply cannot live in a _talan._ I must have stone about me to feel secure." 

"And the only one who builds in stone and makes it look like wood. Even Elrond never had the knack for that." 

"Well, _Ada_ , I do hire the very best help," Legolas said, with a playful wink. "I daresay there have been a few changes at home in the twelve years since I last visited." 

"Ah, yes," said Thranduil. "And on that subject, Galion, would you see to it that you and Sigrid are settled in while I have a few words with Legolas?" 

Sigrid and Galion followed one of Legolas's retainers up the steps and into the palace. "Shall we have our customary rooms in the north tower?" Galion asked. Sigrid cast a quick glance back over her shoulder. Thranduil and Legolas strolled arm in arm on the terrace and they seemed to be in earnest conversation. 

"This will be your room, Mistress," said the servant, after a short climb up a spiral staircase. Sigrid could not help noticing that the elf gave the word 'Mistress' a slight emphasis as he spoke. "I trust it will be to your liking. There is water in the ewer should you wish to refresh yourself. Galion, your chamber is the same as last time." 

The two men shut the door and proceeded on, leaving Sigrid alone in the chamber. She washed her hands and face and dried them on a soft towel. The room was on the third floor, and the single window looked out into the canopy of trees. The scent of the purple flowers blew in on the warm breeze. Sigrid looked out for a time, down onto a walled garden with espaliered fruit trees and other shrubs. Then she went and sat down on the bed. The narrow bed. 

She sighed. Had she truly expected to be treated any differently than Galion or the other servants? At the very least, her stay in Ithilien would be restful, although Sigrid felt she would miss lying beside Thranduil. She had grown accustomed to his comforting presence in the night, even though he tended to steal the covers and nick the backs of her ankles with his toenails. With a smile, she recalled Asa making the same complaint about Wulf years before. Truly, when it came to sleep, all men were alike; the similarities between Elf and Mortal exceeded the differences. 

"Surprise!" 

Sigrid looked up to see Thranduil in his shirtsleeves silhouetted in a connecting doorway, an impish grin upon his face. 

"I must have raised my son right, for he and his butler are both thoughtful and discreet. I daresay no one will take any note of who sleeps where. We will use this room to store the clothing, for the bed in the next one is much more to my liking." With that, he scooped her up and carried her into the adjoining chamber. 

"You see? This bed is much better," he said, dropping her upon it. 

It was a large bed, big enough for three men the size of Thranduil and covered in soft linen. The room was larger too, with two windows looking out over the trees. 

"You are still in your riding clothes. Let me remedy that." Thranduil unfastened her skirt and unlaced her breeches, sliding them down her hips and pulling them off her feet. "I will be your lady's maid for now. There, is this not better?" 

"Oh . . . yes," she said as his hand stroked up her bare thigh. Thranduil had not proved to be much of a lady's maid though, for he had thrown her trousers into the corner. "Mmmm . . . my love, have a care. Galion may come in upon us." 

"Galion knows better," he laughed. "Ears, flask, desk? Besides, you and I taught him his lesson the first time. He will knock and wait for an answer before entering." He began to undo the fastenings of her jacket and the thin shirt she wore beneath that. 

"Thranduil, I will be cold," she said as he slid her shirt and jacket off her shoulders. Her upper garments quickly joined her riding breeches on the floor. 

"Then my arms will be your blanket." He had stripped off his shirt, and his bare skin against her chest burned like a brand. "Warm enough now?" 

"Mmmm. These walls seem thin. Someone may hear us." 

"Then we will be quiet." His pants had joined the growing pile of clothing on the floor. "I confess, I find having to play the secret lover in my son's house very . . . stimulating." 

"As if you needed any excuse to be ruttish," she laughed. But the press of the dear familiar body against her own had made her throw away caution as well. "Oh, all right. But I cannot promise that I will not cry out." 

"Nor can I. But I have a solution for that." He stopped her mouth with his own, and they said no more.

* * * 

Sigrid sat alone, and it suited her mood. Thranduil and his son had ridden out to inspect the border marches of the realm. Sigrid had of course been invited, but she had declined, wishing to give father and son as much time alone on this visit as possible. And even had she not been so sensitive to the needs of her lord, it was her moon time, those days when she wished for nothing more than to curl up with a pillow against her stomach and be left alone. Thranduil had learned early on to give her a wide berth at such times, and it was during these five to seven days each month that most of the Woodland Realm's work was conducted, with time left over for hunting and fishing. 

Thranduil had said that his son had a secret bookish side to his nature, and Ithilien's library bore this out. The shelves held books for every taste, and the rooms were divided into nooks and crannies where a person could take a volume aside for an hour or so of quiet relaxation. 

Sigrid had come across a window seat, with soft cushions and heavy hangings. The book she had found was perhaps not the deepest in the collection, but she had found that she could read, and once she could read, her journey through the pages proved as joyous and free as that of a fish through water. She had put her feet up and lost herself in the tale when voices roused her. 

"I tell you, Glavras, it is a scandal. Our king neglects his duties to dally with a mortal leman, and it is the talk of the realm. You are well to be out of it." Sigrid recognized this as the voice of one of the pikemen who had accompanied them from the Wood. She froze and shrank back behind the curtain, hoping to escape detection. 

"Have you not learned your lesson, Heledir, never to talk about your betters? It profited you once, to tattle of our prince's doings. Yet it did not protect you when you were caught neglecting your own duties and stealing the king's wine." 

"And Galion was forgiven when I was not? I suppose we all know why that was." 

"Oh, Heledir. Sometimes I find it strange that it was the same womb that gave us life, so different are we. And to think, big brother, that you were the one who always called me the babbler. Hold your tongue and learn some wisdom. Thranduil is like his son. The days of those they love are finite. Would you begrudge either of them the precious time spent with those who are soon to be gone? Especially Thranduil who led us through the dark years with no respite and nary a protest?" 

"I fail to see why he cannot ease himself with his valet like a respectable widower," Heledir grumbled. "And if that will not suffice, why a Mortal woman? This one is like unto Queen Lalaithiel as a shiny pebble is to a jewel! At home, it is whispered that he has gone mad to put her in the late queen's place, and bringing her here to inflict this disgrace upon his son merely confirms it." 

Sigrid shut her eyes. Asa had told the truth all those long years ago. Eavesdroppers, even involuntary ones, never heard anything good about themselves, but she would sooner have been spared this information. 

"Heledir, you are a fool. Thranduil would have your ears if he heard you speaking this way, and I daresay Prince Legolas would be displeased as well." 

"Our king may forbid us to speak, but he cannot command our thoughts." 

"Your envious thoughts, brother, are the reason you are demoted to a guard while I am our prince's second in command here in Ithilien." 

"Our prince? Bah! He's as daft as his father. Friends with a dwarf, they say. A dwarf!" 

"Lord Gimli stood with Prince Legolas before the Black Gates. Something I did not see you volunteering to do, Heledir. And I would not advise you to take that tone with him when he comes next month with King Elessar and Queen Arwen. That axe he carries is no mere decoration, and he has quite a temper." 

"Oh, won't that be fun! Parading King Thranduil's kept woman in front of the king of Gondor! Tell me, Glavras, how does your Elven-lord plan to handle that sticky problem?" 

"Prince Legolas does not share these protocol decisions with me, fortunately," said Glavras. "However, I am sure she will be treated with the courtesy due any guest, for it is none of our business what the lady is to Thranduil or he to her." 

"Now who's being a fool?" Heledir laughed. 

The two of them left then, and Sigrid finally dared to breathe again. She stared down at the book she had been reading, a silly tale about a young woman from modest circumstances who finds true love with a rich, handsome man. She felt ill. 

Slowly she rose and returned the book to the shelves with a trembling hand. She had lost interest in the story. It was just words. Empty words on a page.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Translations:**  
>  _Danweg_ : Sindarin name for Lenwë, king of the Nandor  
>  _Eluwaith_ : The people of Elu Thingol, Sindar   
> _Laegren_ : Green-elven, Sindarin term for Nandorin   
> _Ardhon Meth_ : The end of the world


	7. Chapter Seven: The Heart Has its Reasons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A quarrel, a banquet, and a conversation with the prince . . .

_'"What do you make so fair and bright?"  
. . . I build a boat for Sorrow:   
O swift on the seas all day and night   
Saileth the rover Sorrow . . .' _

_WB Yeats, 1885_

 

"What do you mean you will not sit beside me at the banquet?" Thranduil fumed. " _Den rhacho 'ni núath_ , woman! Where, then, would you sit?"

Sigrid almost flinched. Thranduil had never raised his voice to her before, and it troubled her to defy him now. It had become painfully obvious to her why Thranduil and Legolas had chosen to dine privately every night since their arrival, accompanied by only Galion and Legolas's steward, Lord Glavras. It neatly sidestepped the issue of bringing ' _Adar's_ mistress' to the formal table and whether to seat her in a place of honor. "My lord, it is not proper." 

"I will say what is proper and what is not. Has any one of my son's elves said something amiss to you? For if they have I will . . ." 

"No," she said quickly. "No one has said a thing. But I am no longer so innocent or so ignorant of proper etiquette that I do not know that the place beside you is reserved for your queen or your wife. And well you know, my lord, that I am neither." 

The look on his face told her she had stung him. "I will have you shown due courtesy," he said. "If you are not allowed to be beside me, then I will not attend the feast either." 

_'Stubborn elf!_ ' she thought. "What? And snub King Elessar and Queen Arwen? Have you taken leave of your senses?" 

"I have known Aragorn since he was but a gawky lad of twenty summers, barely over his spots and sprouting his first beard," said Thranduil peevishly. "I daresay he puts on his trousers one leg at a time like any other man. I will gladly forego his company at dinner." 

"But I will not let you insult him and embarrass your son. Nor will I force an entire assemblage full of nobles to pretend that nothing is amiss while you flaunt your concubine on your arm. Is it not enough that I live openly with you as your leman? Please, Thranduil, do not make me do this." 

"She's right, you know," said Galion, who had been quietly watching the entire exchange with a pained expression. "It would be a scandal for sure. It may not be just, but it's the truth, Thran." 

Thranduil whirled on his valet. "Am I supposed to see her relegated to a lower table like some . . . servant?" 

Galion raised an eyebrow and Sigrid interjected quickly, "Is there some shame in being a servant, my lord?" 

Thranduil startled at this. "No. Of course not. It is merely that you belong at my side." 

"I know, my love," she said. "But for this one evening, I may not. I will not." 

"In that case," said Galion smoothly, "it will be my privilege and my pleasure to be your escort at dinner tomorrow, Lady Sigrid." 

Thranduil's shoulders sagged. "Oh, very well. I cannot fight you both. But it does not mean I accept this willingly." He made a shooing gesture with his hand and Galion bowed and disappeared off through the connecting door to his room, flashing a quick secret smile at Sigrid. 

Sigrid turned and went to the dressing table. She faced into her mirror, mostly to avoid looking Thranduil in the eye and began to brush angrily at her hair. She heard him step up behind her, and the wide expanse of his green velvet-clad chest filled the glass. She saw and felt his hands upon her shoulders. 

"Hush, now," he said, gently catching her wrist. "You will do yourself no good ripping out your hair." He took the brush from her and set it down, bringing his hand back up to stroke her cheek. "I am so sorry, beloved. I know what I ask of you, and I would give you a better life if I could. Our laws can be cruel. I was too much of a coward to change them when it was requested of me, and now I dare not, when I would be doing it to suit my own convenience. Forgive me." 

She sighed and brought her hand up to cover his. "Do you think my life would have been better emptying chamber pots and sweeping floors in Esgaroth? I am willing to accept what I must in order to be with you. And eating dinner with Galion is the least of it." 

She felt his lips brush the top of her head. "Dearest, you are more than I deserve."

* * *

"Below the salt isn't such a bad place to sit, now is it?" said Galion, his voice merry with the wine. 

"How could it be, with two such handsome fellows as us for company?" said a big blond elf who sat on her other side. He was even merrier with the wine, a fine dark red out of Harad. 

Sigrid had to agree. Legolas's cellarer was very good-looking, although she would have been hard pressed to think of an elf who was not fair of face, and Firdal's sunny nature did nothing to detract from it. 

"Pass the mint sauce, Firdal," said Galion, "and try to control your undue modesty." Out from under Thranduil's shadow, Galion had proved to be quite the comedic wit, keeping Sigrid nigh unto tears with laughter all evening. If she could not be at Thranduil's side, there was surely no place she would rather be than right here, below the salt. 

Sigrid giggled, trying not to spill her wine. "Have mercy on me you two, or I shall spoil your lord's fine tablecloth." 

Sigrid could not recall enjoying herself so much in many a year. For once the eyes were not upon her. She was the one with the luxury of sitting and watching. And watch she did, in between exchanging quips with her two Elven gallants. 

Of all the folk at the high table, Queen Arwen fascinated Sigrid the most. Thranduil had told her that Arwen was called Undomiel, The Evenstar, and truly, she was beauty personified, with her dark hair and flawless skin. Sigrid felt glad not to have sat near her, for she would have looked like a weed beside an exotic flower. And yet, for all her beauty, there was a sadness about this queen of Gondor that Sigrid could not define. 

To Arwen's right, between her and Lord Legolas, sat King Elessar himself. Sigrid had no word to describe him other than magnificent. He was Elven tall, and the years had not stooped him. His hair and beard shone silver white, the color of a polished sword, and his eyes were a clear and piercing grey. 

On Legolas's other side sat the Dwarf, Gimli. Where King Elessar's hair and beard were silver, Gimli's were white as the snow, full, thick, and put into braids that spilled down his back and tucked into his belt in the front. Bright brown eyes sparkled in the mass of white hair, like two clever birds peering out of a bush. 

To Arwen's left, sat Thranduil. Charming as ever, he kept Arwen amused with a steady stream of conversation, and yet, Sigrid noticed, his eyes strayed often in her direction. 

"He looks wistful," Galion said. "Leave it to Thranduil to be sitting next to the re-embodiment of Luthien and wish to be somewhere else." 

"Queen Undomiel is lovely, it is true, but I am told that she has a sharp side to her tongue when crossed, as would befit Elrond Peredhel's daughter," Firdal whispered. "Our Mistress Sigrid has an equally lovesome mien and a sweet nature besides. I think the two of us have the better bargain tonight, Galion." 

King Elessar cleared his throat for silence and raised his glass in a toast. "To good friends, good fellowship, and peace in our time!" 

There was a chorus of 'Hear, hears,' and glasses raised throughout the hall. "If ever there were a one with the right to make that toast, it is Aragorn, son of Arathorn," she heard Galion murmur beside her, serious for once as he raised his own glass. 

But as the king lowered his goblet, Sigrid saw his hand begin to tremble, and the remaining wine in it sloshed. As quick as a striking snake, the hand of Thranduil's son shot out, catching Elessar's wrist. "Indeed, my dear friend," said Legolas, wrapping the hand with his own slender fingers before the glass could slip from the king's grasp entirely. "To fellowship and peace!" He gently lowered the glass to the table, making the maneuver look like a gesture of affection merely. 

Silence followed, mercifully brief. A harp struck. Laughter again filled the hall, and smiles returned to the lips of those at the high table. But Sigrid could not help noting that the merriment did not reach their eyes. Queen Arwen and Lord Legolas kept a wary watch on the king, while Thranduil and the Dwarf kept a discreet yet unwavering gaze upon Legolas. Their eyes held a common look, and it was long before Sigrid could place the emotion she saw written there. It was fear, she decided. Fear of impending loss.

* * *

Three days later, the final day of Elessar's visit, Sigrid sat on the broad terrace beside the palace, watching Thranduil and the king practice archery on the lawn below. Galion had told her that the Wood boasted no finer swordsman than Thranduil, and she had little doubt of that, but he and the king were equally matched in their skill with a bow. Both of them hit their targets with the same frequency, although she noticed that Elessar seemed to be tiring, for he paused to rub his shoulder from time to time, and he drew his bow with greater difficulty as the afternoon drew on. This was to be expected in a man of his years, she supposed. 

The dwarf, Gimli, had joined them in the contest. He did not use a bow, but rather some small throwing axes, hitting the butts with a speed and accuracy that Sigrid found surprising for someone of his size and age. 

Sigrid heard female voices approaching and recognized the cultured tones of the queen and her ladies, and the swift speech of Gondor. As kind and gracious as she knew Queen Arwen to be, Sigrid simply could not face her. Chiding herself for cowardice, she rose and fled as silent as a deer in the forest. She ran down the terrace and ducked through a wooden door in a high stone wall. 

Sigrid found herself in the walled garden she had first seen from her window. Full midsummer had set the flowers into bloom, and tiny half-ripe fruit hung on the espaliered trees. Her attention was captured by one of the rosebushes. The flowers were the deepest shade of red she had ever seen. She bent to sniff the velvety blooms, taking in the scent of wine and pepper and a hint of the lemons Thranduil imported from the south to carry them through the Eryn Lasgalen winters. 

"They are lovely, are they not?" Lord Legolas rose from a bench, where he sat, motionless and quiet as if he had been part of the greenery itself. 

Sigrid startled and blushed as red as the rose. "Forgive me, my lord, I did not know you were in here." 

He laughed. "Even a legendary war hero needs some solitude at times. Watching and listening to my father and my two best friends argue about archery is not my idea of relaxation." 

He paused and sighed, stroking the petals of another rose, this time a pale pink one. "I hate to keep these roses behind a wall. It seems unnatural somehow, but the woods are filling again with deer, and they will chew them to stubs unless I protect them. Somehow, the deer at home never ate Father's shrubs or his trees either. I do not know how he manages that." 

"Could such a delicate, exquisite thing as this rose survive in wild Eryn Lasgalen?" she asked him. 

"I do not know, Mistress Sigrid, " he said with a gentle smile. "You must tell me that, for you would be the one to know." 

She blushed again, more deeply this time. Surely the son was as great a charmer as the father. And with Legolas, the charm held a sweetness that tugged at her heart. 

"Mistress," he continued, "I would have you know that it was not I who banished you from my table, or counseled my folk to do it. I would sooner have had you with us and Mandos take the wagging tongues." 

"I know," she replied, rubbing her thumb against her forefinger, for a thorn had pricked her. "You would have suffered it for love of your father. But I would not do that to you." She looked deep into his blue eyes, shades paler than his father's, but lovely as a spring sky. "Please forgive me, my lord . . . Legolas. I know this cannot be easy for you." 

"No," he protested, and then laughed. "Well, yes . . . perhaps a little. But I never knew my mother, you see, so I've no cause to feel any jealousy over it. I have never seen my father so happy as you have made him, and that means much to me." 

Sigrid dropped her eyes and colored. At a loss for a reply, she bent to sniff again at the rose. "Such a lovely scent this is." 

"Indeed," he said sadly, "but I cannot enjoy it. For many a year my nostrils have been filled with the salt scent of the sea, driving out all other. The only music I hear is the cry of the gulls. I am in agony with the longing. Sigrid, I am glad you are with my father, for he will need all the comfort he can find in the days to come . . . "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Translation:**  
>  _Den rhacho 'ni núath!_ : Curse it to the shadows! Equivalent of 'dammit to hell!'   
> Translation from Sindarin by Darth Fingon


	8. Chapter Eight: Fortune's Fool

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Gwaeron of the year 120 Fourth Age, news from the south brings a dark night of the _faer_ . . .

_"Oh western wind, when wilt thou blow,_  
And bring the gentle rain?  
Oh, that my love were in my arms  
And I in my bed again." 

_Traditional English folksong_

 

The winds of Ivanneth blew down off the Misty Mountains as Thranduil's party journeyed homeward. 

The leave-taking had been restrained and even falsely cheerful to Sigrid's ear. They stood again on the broad terrace, with the colored leaves of autumn falling about them. What had passed between father and son the night before, Sigrid did not know, for Thranduil had come to bed late and smelling of wine. Now, Legolas laid a hand on Thranduil's shoulder. "Be well, Father." 

Thranduil drew a deep breath and nodded. " _Garo 'lass_ , my son."

He turned, mounted his horse. and the party moved out. The sound of Elven voices came from the fading trees as they made their way through the wood, heading westward toward the Anduin. '' _When honey spills , and apple swells, though wind be in the west; I'll linger here beneath the sun . . ._ " 

This time, Thranduil did not join in the song. He remained silent, turning his head only once to look back before the palace was lost to sight around the bend of the trail. Legolas still stood on the terrace, his hand raised in farewell.

Thranduil had been withdrawn on the ride northward, and it was not until they were well above the falls and passing the southern tip of the Wood that he regained a semblance of his former self. Again, Sigrid rode behind him, arms about his waist, head leaning into his hard back, feeling the remnants of tension in his muscles.

"This was once my home," he said, looking to the east, where the land rose into dark, tree-clad hills and glens. "Amon Lanc, where my father brought us first to dwell in Ages long past. Then it became the Enemy's, filling the wood with fear and peril. Now Lord Rúmil of Lorien rules it, and I've not the heart to see, although I deem he does it well and wisely. My kinsman, Celeborn, enjoyed it for such a short time. 

"At long last I begin to understand Galadriel and Elrond," he said with a sigh. "I laughed at them for their Rings of Power, for I thought it folly. But I feel it myself now, the temptation to hold back the hand of time from all that I love. Would that we could, eh, Galion?" 

"Would that we could, Sire," Galion agreed. He too was somber, his dark brows knit. But in his saddlebags, Sigrid knew, he carried a gift to her from Prince Legolas; the bare root-stock of three rose bushes; a red, a pink and a white. Tender blooms from the south to try their fortune in the Wood of Green Leaves.

* * * 

In the last days of the month of Gwaeron of the following year, a courier from the south came riding up to the Elvenking's great gates bearing two letters. The first bore the Seal of Gondor, on paper bordered in black. Thranduil opened it while seated on his throne, and Sigrid saw his face pale as he read it.

"King Elessar is dead. His son, Eldarion, sends me word." 

The second letter was larger, a wrapped package sealed in silver wax stamped with an acorn device. Thranduil stared at it long, as if it were some venomous viper he held in his lap, before rising and heading for his private study. When Sigrid and Galion made as if to follow, he whirled and shook his head. "Leave me!" 

"Sire . . ." Galion began. 

"Leave me! All of you!" Thranduil shouted. He shut the door behind him.

* * *

Hours later, the candles in the sconces had burned down to stubs. As Sigrid watched, one reached its end and went out in a little puff of smoke. "Enough," she said. "It has been too long. I am going to him."

Galion stirred beside her. "Mistress . . . Sigrid, I warn you not to. I have been with Thranduil many a long year, and he becomes wild when these moods take him. There are times when even those he loves dare not brave his company." 

"This is not one of those times," she said, firmly. "Go to bed, Galion, for you look exhausted. But I am going in there." Before he could make any further protest, she placed her hand to the door and entered. 

The first sight to meet her eyes was a flash of gold; Thranduil lay face down upon his desk, his bright hair puddled around him. Next, she saw tumbled wine bottles, all empty and too many of them. On the desk lay an open letter, and Thranduil's outstretched arm reached past it, his hand resting lightly on a thin band of delicately twined mithril. 

Sigrid tiptoed to his side and took up the letter, noting only the first few words, " _Adar vuin, nin gohenno . . ._ '' before folding it and placing it out of sight in a desk drawer. The circlet she recognized but did not touch. 

Gently, she shook Thranduil's shoulder. "My lord? Thranduil . . .? Dearest, you must wake and come to bed now." 

Slowly, the golden head raised up and Thranduil looked at her with bleary, unfocused eyes. He had fallen forward onto his own hand, and royal oak leaf of his signet ring was imprinted on his cheek like a fell brand. Unlike the lesser trees that will bend before a wind, oaks are strong, unyielding; they will stand firm before the gales of adversity until they snap. 

"Oh, Thranduil, " she said. 

"I had hoped . . ." he said, seeming not to hear her. "I had hoped he would change his mind at the end. But Hope died, and now my boy is gone." 

"My love, please," she whispered. "You need to sleep." 

Thranduil shook his head and stumbled to his feet. His eyes were dark pools, and grief twisted his face. "I am accursed," he said. "All whom I love, I lose -- _adar nîn, ion nîn, . . ._ " he reached out an unsteady hand, stopping just short of her cheek, " _. . . ves nîn._ " 

Sigrid sighed, barely able to trust her voice. "You loved her very much," she said bleakly. 

"Loved her?" he laughed, bitterly. "I was weak and she was strong, but not strong enough for both of us. I loved her, and I killed her . . . my love." His last words came out almost in a sob. 

Before Sigrid could react, Thranduil reached out for her and swept her into his arms. Clutching her as a drowning man holds to a branch that is keeping him from being swept away into the flood, he kissed her fiercely. She tasted wine and a hint of salt from the corner of his mouth. Strong arms lifted her onto the desk, the weight of his body pressing her back, and his hand groped, pushing her skirts up around her waist. Another fumble at his own clothing, and she felt his hardened flesh blindly seeking her. 

"Oh, Thranduil, my poor love," she whispered. She could no more refuse him than a slender willow resists bending before the power of a summer windstorm, or the earth rejects the falling rain. She lay quietly, accepting, beneath him as she became the vessel into which he poured his grief and need. Slowly, inexorably, he filled her, and she turned her face to gaze at the lonely band of mithril that lay beside her head, while she rocked with the force of his thrusting. 

He came with a cry, and she felt moisture on the side of her face, where his lashes brushed against her cheek. Sigrid shut her eyes tightly, holding back her own tears. The name on his lips had not been hers. _Lalaithiel . . ._

He rolled off her and she slid away from him and stood up, smoothing ineffectively at her dress and hair. Thranduil rose, staggered and would have fallen had she not rushed to catch him under the arm. "Sorry . . . so sorry," he slurred. 

"Come, Thranduil, you need your sleep." He was light for someone of his size, but even so, she had trouble steering him to the door. Outside in the hallway, Galion rested, half sitting with his back against the wall and his arms draped over his bent knees. He scrambled to his feet when he caught sight of the two of them. 

"Here, let me help you get him to bed. I've done it enough times." Galion's servant mask had fallen firmly into place, but not before Sigrid had seen a flash of pity in his eyes. "Are you all right, Mistress?" he whispered in concern. 

"Quite," she replied, knowing how she must look with her dress half undone and her hair disheveled. "Does he do this often?" 

Galion put Thranduil's other arm over his shoulder and bore him up. Immediately, Sigrid felt the weight upon her lessen. "No, but when he does . . ." He turned his dark head back, to where the mithril band gleamed, plainly visible through the open doorway. "I suppose he was due. That was our prince's circlet; Thranduil's before him. He has no need of it now. I have been dreading this day ever since Legolas came home from the war with the sea in his heart. Poor Thranduil, he always feared his son would meet his doom before the Black Gates. Instead it was the sound of the waves on the shore that took him." 

"What can we do for him?" she asked. 

"To lose his only child?" Galion sighed and shook his head. "Willow bark tea and bland food tomorrow. Friends to make him laugh and a good woman to hold him as you have done. And time. It is all we can do. Fortunately, time is something we First Born have in abundance." 

Together, friend and lover took the drunken Elvenking through the darkened corridors of his palace to his bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Translations:**  
>  _Garo 'lass_ : Have joy  
>  _Adar vuin, nin gohenno . . ._ : Beloved father, forgive me . . .  
>  _adar nîn_ : my father  
>  _ion nîn_ : my son  
>  _ves nîn_ : my wife 
> 
> Special Note: Many thanks to Greywing for the detail of the signet ring in the cheek.


	9. Chapter 9: The Pilgrim Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Gift of Men can be bitter -- especially for Elves.

_"Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds . . .  
Love is not Time's fool, though rosey lips and cheeks  
Within his bending sickle's compass come . . .  
If this be error and upon me prov'd  
I never writ, nor no man ever loved. "_

_Wm. Shakespeare, Sonnet 116_

 

After that dark night, Thranduil rose, pulled his strength about him like a cloak and put on his kingly smile. In time, he even learned to laugh again and be merry with his folk, yet, in Sigrid's secret heart, she knew the sadness never entirely left him. 

The rosebushes from Ithilien, planted the autumn before in Thranduil's private garden on the riverbank, survived the winter and bloomed that summer, thriving in their new home. The white one had proved to be a climber, twining itself around the trunk of an ancient oak that grew at the edge of the glade. Galion had offered to prune it back saying, "It will choke the tree, Sire," but Thranduil had refused. 

"It gladdens me to see the strength of the rose, Galion," he had said. "This is my tree, and I know its heart. The rose will do it no harm." Sigrid often saw him gazing at the bright blooms over the course of the years, as the two of them lay together in their private spot. 

In the first summer after their return from Ithilien. Sigrid had finally given in to her curiosity about what had become of her aunt and asked if she might travel south to her old settlement. Thranduil, still deep in his grief over the sailing of his son, had insisted on accompanying her. Although the shadow had left the wood long since, there was still peril for a woman alone. She felt guilty for taking him from his duties, but Galion had whispered to her as he saw them off, "The time alone with you will do him good. He's little use to us now, as he is. Every Elf needs to go among the trees from time to time, to remember who we are and where we came from." 

The journey south had taken almost a fortnight. Again, they shared the same horse, but they kept to no path, Thranduil finding his way among the trees seemingly by instinct alone. He hunted what food they needed, and by night they slept curled together in one blanket. Galion had been correct, for the longer the two of them spent in the emerald light of the woods, the more the tension seemed to lift from him. 

"We are almost to the southern borders of my realm," Thranduil said, when they reached an area where the ancient oaks thinned out in favor of younger stands of elm and poplar. "There was a great battle here, and a burning, but the woods have healed themselves. Soon the scars will be gone; the damage of The Enemy forgotten like an evil dream." 

At times, the trees became sparse enough to allow a view to the west, where the land rose toward pine clad mountains. "Those are the _Emyn Duir_ ," said Thranduil, his face haunted. "I gave territory to Celeborn and to the Edain of the Wood, but I shall never cede the mountains. Never." 

Then he had turned to her with a smile. "But we do not go there. If we continued on south we should come to the _Men I Naugrim_ , the Old Forest Road, but we will turn east now. We are just a half day's journey to the edge of the forest, at the spot where the Celduin enters the Wood. There you will find your former home." 

They came at last to the edges of the wood. "Let me go on first," she said, as Thranduil tied the horse. "I do not know what I will find." 

He nodded reluctantly, but Sigrid noticed his hand strayed unconsciously to the hilt of his sword. "I will be close by." 

She went on slowly, spying the familiar bulk of the rickety shed. Off to the side of the building, nearer to the trees, she saw a grass covered mound which had begun to collapse in the middle. 

A lank-haired girl with an infant on her hip stood in the yard, tossing out grain to the chickens. Sigrid had to look closely to make sure, but she reminded her of a young village girl she had once looked after while her mother went about her work. Wulf leaned against the shed, a cup in his hand. She did not have to guess at the contents when Wulf spoke, slurring his words. "Quit your day-dreaming and get inside. I want my dinner before sunset." The girl nodded wearily and disappeared into the house. "And shut that brat up," he yelled after. "Useless girl-child. The next one had best be a boy . . ." 

Sigrid sighed, looking at the lonely grave beyond the shed. "Oh, Asa . . . " But she had no tears to spare; her aunt was past her suffering now. 

Alerted by some sound of hers, or perhaps only the sensation of being watched, Wulf shifted and peered into the forest. She knew he saw her then, standing like some ghost among the trees, for he squinted and then blinked in disbelief. His mouth formed a silent, "Sigrid, girl . . .?" 

Sigrid said nothing, staring back at him. She heard the rustle of footsteps in the leaves behind her, and she felt Thranduil throw a proprietary arm about her waist, drawing her back against his chest. 

Wulf gaped and shook his head. Thranduil laughed then; a low throaty chuckle with a hint of fey menace. "Come, let us go from here," he whispered. He took her by the hand and led her into the deepening shadows of the Wood. 

"I saw it all," he said. "What a squalid place! Is your heart eased, my love?" Sigrid shook her head, although there was nothing more she could have done to help her aunt, or the girl, who but for a turn of fortune could just have easily been herself. 

"I am sorry to hear that," he said. "But mine is."

* * *

Time passed, as is time's wont. She wove her cloth. She learned to play the harp. In the years that Thranduil went to arrange trade agreements in Esgaroth, she rode at his side. They stayed in the same inn, in the same rooms and it was the inn-keeper's son who came out to greet them on arrival, all bows and smiles. She saw the chamber wench who had mocked her at their first meeting grow stout with age and lose her teeth. The woman treated her with deference now, for Sigrid was accepted by the folk of Laketown as the Elvenking's lady, no longer a beggar-maid taken up upon the road.

The years passed, each one bringing only a little change, yet change they brought, until one morning Sigrid looked into her mirror and asked, "Who is this woman who stares back at me? Who is she, that came in the night and stole my face?" 

The years had been kind. The woman before her was grave and handsome. Only a few lines marked her skin; a gauntness here, a fullness there to mark the pull of the bones of Arda upon its Mortal children. How many years had she been with her Elven-lord? Sigrid counted up the winters, when the frost had crisped the branches; the springs when the wood-violets had bloomed, strewing the forest floor with their indigo glory; the summers, with the warm fragrance of the roses in their secret garden; the autumns, with the jewel-like glory of the shedding leaves. Thirty of them had passed, she realised. At thirty-eight, Asa had been an old woman. Sigrid was forty-eight, and she was still pleasant to look upon, yet she wished for her youth back.

As she sat looking into her mirror, she saw Thranduil come up behind her, fresh from his morning ablutions. "Why the sad face, dearest?" he asked. 

She looked down into her lap. "Galion tells me that he can no longer mend your riding jacket. The sleeves and shoulders are worn through," she said, holding up the garment to show him. 

"Ah, well, it is thus in life. All things must pass. I shall send it to the seamstresses to make into patches, and I shall have another made." 

His face was the same youthful mien she had beheld above the crowd of little golden stars so many years before. How could she explain why the loss of that jacket made her sad? Or why the slowing and eventual cessation of her monthly courses filled her with fear. "I have a grey hair," she said lamely. 

She watched him carefully in her glass then. She saw his hand poised above her head as if to pluck. "Thranduil, my love, if you use that tactic, I shall become bald, all too soon." 

In the mirror, she saw him pull his hand back with a guilty frown, only to reach down again to stroke her head. "You do not know Elves. We find silver hair to be very attractive." 

"Do not mock me," she said quietly. "I know that I age and wear out, much like this jacket." 

"Mock?" he said. "I desire you. That will never change." 

"Please, my lord, after all these years, do not lie to me." She knew she had struck home, because he snatched her up and whirled her to him. 

"Is this a lie?" he asked, taking her hand down to himself, where she felt him swell beneath the fabric of his dressing gown. "Oh how can I make you understand, beloved? I see your _faer_ when I gaze upon you. To me, you are the same lovely girl who captured my heart so many years ago. I will never see another. I desire you now." 

She shook her head in exasperation. "Oh, Thranduil, why is it that you think you can solve every problem by bedding me?" 

"Because I am very good at bedding," he replied with an earnestness that she would have found comical under any other circumstances. "And if bedding does not solve the problem, at least the two of us will have passed a pleasant hour and our spirits will be raised thereby. I, for one, would like to have my spirits raised, and I have nothing better to do this fine morning than to remain right here in this bedchamber with you until your spirits are raised as well." He stood looking down at her with one brow raised quizzically. "Hmmm?" 

Sigrid was forced to laugh despite herself. "Honestly, Thranduil, how old are you anyway? For sometimes you sound no more than one of the silly stripling boys back home." 

"Truly, beloved," he said, "you do not want to know." 

"Oh, very well," she replied. "Let us raise our spirits together. But indulge me in one thing. Today, I would like to be the lover." 

He smiled slyly at this. "I always find that very pleasant." 

Slowly, she stood tiptoe to kiss his chin, smelling the scent of soap on his smooth skin. She undid the fastenings of his dressing gown and slid it from his shoulders. He stood naked before her, and she said, looking down, "I see a spirit is already raised, my lord." 

"Then you must conjure it down, Sorceress," he laughed. "And I am Thranduil to you." 

"Once we are in the bed, you will be Thranduil," she said, pushing him backwards until his legs caught on the edge of the mattress and he settled down onto his back. He lay outstretched on the blankets, smiling up at her. She stripped off her robe and tossed it aside, kneeling over him. He reached out to her and she caught his hand. "No. Lie still. I will be the lover today, remember?" 

He put his hands back down at his sides, obedient, but she noticed his fists gripped the covers as she rained kisses upon his chest and ran her tongue down his body, past his navel to the triangle of silky golden hair at his groin. He stood tall for her, and she blew gently over him, taking in the musky scent he gave off when aroused. A tiny bead of moisture had formed at his tip, and she licked it away, circling her tongue lightly at first, then fully round the velvety head to its underside. She took him fully into her mouth, sliding her lips down his shaft as far as they would go, caressing with cheeks and tongue. 

He gave a gasp and bucked his hips forward, hitting the back of her throat. "No -- please, you must stop. I cannot control myself when you do that." 

No matter, she thought. He was as hard as a tree branch and she already ached for him herself. Any further subtleties would be entirely unnecessary. She drew back and straddled him, easing herself down onto the slickness of her own mouth. 

Slowly, she sank lower, letting him fill her. 

"You are the scabbard to my sword; the quiver to my arrow," he murmured. 

She bent forward, laughing as the sensation of her hair tickling his nipples made him hitch in his breath and squirm. "Thranduil, if you can still speak, I am not doing my job right." She began to move against him, watching his face as he slowly came undone. 

' _I am the most fortunate of women,'_ she thought, _'that this glorious man should be mine, if only for a time. All that wild power, rendered gentle, for me alone.'_ She re-doubled the rhythm, and his hands came up from the blankets to grasp her hips, pulling her down onto him and meeting her with an upward thrust of his body. He set the pace now, but she did not protest, for she felt her own crisis building. 

In that moment, she cherished everything about him; the shudder in the loins, the grimace on his face as the pleasure took him. Best of all was her power to bring him to such a state beneath her, surpassing even the joy of her own culmination. 

The climax past, she disengaged and sank down beside him, laying her head on his shoulder. " _Le melin,_ " he whispered. 

"And I love you, Thranduil. Whatever the two of us are, it was meant to be." Slowly, she ran her hand over the mark on his chest, feeling the cadence of his heart beating beneath her palm. He had stubbornly refused to explain what the runes meant, and by all rights she should resent this strange symbol, yet, instead she treasured it. 

He, in turn, put his hand to her heart, slowly lower to cup her breast. He smiled . . . and froze. "This was not so large a fortnight ago." 

"They were never very large," she laughed, still basking in the afterglow of their lovemaking. "Perhaps I grow plump at last." 

"No," he said, his brow knitting. "This." He took her hand and put it to a spot just above her left nipple. She felt it then, a hard, tiny knot beneath the skin, the size of a pebble. 

She was troubled, then, but did not show it. "I will consult Nestalinde this week." 

Thranduil shook his head. "You will summon Nestalinde. But you will do it now, and I shall stay here with you."

* * *

Sigrid sat, bare to the waist as Nestalinde examined her with gentle, skilled fingers. If she felt any embarrassment at being naked before a stranger or being touched by another woman in the sight of her lord, it was of no matter, for Thranduil, predictably, hovered anxiously and would not be sent away.

"It is an affliction of Mortal women," the lady healer said, only a slight wrinkle between her dark brows betraying her concern, "most commonly seen among those who have not borne a child." 

Sigrid saw Thranduil's face pinch in pain. She felt a brief moment of compassion for him, but it was overshadowed by a flood of comprehension. Back in her settlement, there had been two middle-aged women who lived alone together on the edge of the wood, making their way by gathering and selling herbs they gathered in the forest or grew in their little garden, relying on no man for their livelihood. At the mention of their names, Wulf had always spat in disgust and muttered a vile word. When the younger of them had taken a canker on her breast he had said that her painful death was the judgment of the Allfather upon her for her unnatural ways. Perhaps, Sigrid thought, the Allfather was punishing her now for her love of Thranduil. 

"Is there aught that can be done?" Thranduil demanded. 

"There are measures I may take," Nestalinde replied, her face guarded. "I have lived long and I have seen the course of this malady enough to be familiar with it since the coming of the Edain." 

"Good," said Thranduil, with the look of one who is grasping at straws. "See that you do all. I want my beloved made well." 

"Yes, Sire," said Nestalinde, but not before Sigrid had seen a flash of pity in her grey eyes; pity not for herself but for Thranduil. The two women exchanged a glance of silent understanding. 

Sigrid sighed, feeling an odd resignation. _'My lord will not be forced to love a crone after all,'_ she told herself sadly.

* * *

Nestalinde put Sigrid under an Elven spell of sleep, and when she awoke there was a tiny cut on her breast, tied with two stitches of spider silk. The 'pebble' was gone. The wound healed with barely a scar, and she stayed well for some time, seeing her roses bloom on the riverbank twice more. But at the Solstice time of the second year, when Thranduil's elves filled the cave with garlands of evergreen boughs and her lord put on his crown of holly berries, and she began to feel a sharp ache in her knee and walking became painful. The pain in her knee was soon joined by one in her wrist, and then a stabbing in her back that made sitting upright a torture. Even the dark juice of the poppy flowers Thranduil imported from the east could not allay the aching in her bones completely, and she took to her bed, spending more and more of her time in drugged sleep.

On the first warm day of spring, Thranduil carried her outside to their riverbank. As the king passed through the halls, his lover borne in his strong arms, Sigrid had seen the eyes of his elves upon her, filled with sadness. _'Some of them do love me for myself,'_ she realized. _'Despite all._ ' 

He picked wood violets, which he put into her hands, and the two of them lay together in the soft grass, her head on Thranduil's chest as they watched the clouds drift by overhead. Her roses had again survived the winter and were putting out their first green buds of the season's growth. "How I wish I could have seen them bloom one more time," she said to him. 

"You will, my love," he replied. "You will see their blossoms for many years to come." 

She sighed, too tired to say him nay. _'My poor Thranduil,'_ she thought. ' _You think that simply by saying it firmly enough you can make it so. But there are some things that even a mighty king may not command.'_

When the afternoon drew on and the air began to cool, Thranduil carried her back into the shelter of his cave. Light as a feather in his arms, she heard the great stone gates grind shut behind them, and she knew that she had heard the rustle of the trees and felt the warmth of the sun on her face for the last time as a living woman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation:  
>  _Le melin_ : I love you
> 
>  **Author's note:**  
>  Unfortunately, breast cancer is not a disease confined to the modern era, although it has become more prevalent thanks to a toxic environment, women living longer, and women having fewer children. I offer the fallowing quote --
> 
>  _"A horror known to every culture in every age, breast cancer has been responsible for the deaths of 25 million women throughout history. An Egyptian physician writing 3,500 years ago concluded that there was no treatment for the disease. Later surgeons recommended excising the tumor or, in extreme cases, the entire breast. This was the treatment advocated by the court physician to sixth-century Byzantine empress Theodora, the wife of Justinian, though she chose to die in pain rather than lose her breast. Only in the past few decades has treatment advanced beyond disfiguring surgery." Bathsheba's Breast: Women, Cancer, and History by James S. Olsen_ http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title_pages/1192.html


	10. Chapter Ten: The Dream of Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the end, secrets are revealed.

_"The water is wide, I can't cross o'er,  
Yet I've no wings that I might fly.   
I have no boat that will carry two . . ." _

_Traditional English Folksong_

 

She awoke from poppy-fueled dreams of pine-scented mountain glens and an airy palace among the trees. It seemed she had lain in that room for months, one day blurring into the next, dimly aware of the Healers who came to tend her. She recalled Nestalinde's kind face, and the sound of Thranduil singing their favorite songs to soothe her when the pain became too bad. _"I will build my love a bower, by yon free-flowing fountain; and inside it I shall pile all the flowers from the mountain . . ."_

Had it turned to summer already? The window -- her window that she had insisted upon when Thranduil brought them all north from the _Emyn Duir_ to dwell safely underground -- stood open and the breeze blowing in through the heavy grille that kept the spiders out in the old days was warm; the light the reddish glow of sunset. 

She fought to bring her eyes into focus, and saw, at first, a flash of gold and a splash of red. Thranduil stood at the chest of drawers on the far wall, bent over a vase of scarlet flowers . _'He looks haggard,'_ she thought, for his fair face was marred with tiny lines of sorrow. ' _When is the last time he left this room?'_

Sensing her gaze upon him, he glanced up and smiled. "Look, beloved," he said. "Galion has brought you roses." 

Roses grew in only one place in Mirkwood, their private garden. _'Dear Galion,'_ she thought, always so quietly perceptive. He knew that of the three bushes brought from Ithilien, the red was her favorite, for its vibrant color and scent reminded her of her lord. 

"I know your face." Her voice sounded thin and reedy to her own ears. 

"Of course you do, my darling," he said, as if gently humoring her. "I am your Thranduil." 

"No, you great royal fool -- I know you." 

Upon hearing those words, he became very still and slowly swiveled his head round to peer at her intently. "There was only one who ever called me that; only one who knew she called me that, other than myself. My wife . . . Lalaithiel." The artificial cheer left his face and he looked at her with dawning hope. "Can it be, after all this time? Lalaithiel . . .?" 

She nodded. 

He rushed to her, knelt by the side of the bed and took her hand. " _A, Lalaithiel, herves vuin, na vedui!"_

As he brought her hand to his lips, she saw that it was pale, the bones and veins showing through the skin, more like a bird claw than the hand she remembered. _'What have I become in this Mortal flesh?'_

"I have waited so long for you to call me by that name and to know me at last," he said, kissing her hand fervently. "Ever since that first day on the road outside of Esgaroth, when I looked into a pair of brown eyes and saw two moonstones staring back at me." 

"You knew me from that moment?" she whispered. 

"You and I are mates. Our _faer_ are bound until the end of all things. How could I not know you?" he said. "You have no idea how hard it was for me not to snatch you up from the dirt and take you in my arms then and there. And yet you did not recognise me. I thought, that first night, when you came to me, but . . ." He shook his head helplessly. 

"My heart knew you, Thranduil, even when my conscious mind did not. I was drawn to you, against all wisdom and logic. And I stayed with you, and loved you, despite your people thinking you a madman and me a trollop."

"I could not give two shouts in a high wind what my people thought of me. My vows to you were sworn before Eru, and only The One has the right to judge me -- no one else. But for you, it pained me to have my wife and rightful queen seen that way." 

"Tell me, were there any among them who knew the truth?" 

"Galion. I told him that first morning to save my own skin," he said, with a rueful laugh. "He has borne much from me throughout the years, but even he would not allow me to debauch a Mortal maid for my own pleasure. We almost came to blows over it, my good Galion and I. You have had a champion in him from that first day. It was he who told me it was a cruelty to take you from the only folk you had known, to live a life where you would be seen as a scandal. And he spoke true. Every slight to you has cut me like a knife. But you were my wife, and how, having found you again, could I not take you to me as before? How could I leave you among the _Edain_?" 

He looked at her beseechingly, and she saw that one of his braids had come loose. How unlike him it was to be unkempt, and she realized that her situation must have come to a sorry pass for him to neglect himself in this manner, or to keep Galion from it. "Were there any others?" 

"Nestalinde. She knew you right away, and she confirmed what I already feared: that were I to inform you of your true name and nature before you recalled it on your own, the shock to your _faer_ might well drive you into madness or worse. I was betwixt Balrog and precipice; I must either be seen to be taking you, my own wife, as my mistress, or tell all and risk your sanity."

"There was one other about whose opinion you cared," she said. "Legolas. Did you tell him, my love?" 

Thranduil shook his head slowly. "Tell our son that the mother he had never known now stood before him and yet remembered him not? It would have been cruel. Even worse, I knew that I might use you as a weapon to influence him to stay. I will not say that I was not tempted, but in the end I could not." 

Thranduil looked down into his hands and took a slow breath. "I told him merely that I loved you and made no apology. He replied that he was eccentric enough in his own friendships that he was hardly one to judge me and that if I loved you, you must be worthy of it." 

She laughed softly, even though it sent a wave of pain through her. "You raised him well, Thranduil. Our son is decent, gentle, and kind." 

"And gone too soon. At our last meeting, he told me he had come to love you for yourself, and that I should treat you well." He looked back up at her, his face twisted with an old memory. "And what did I do then? I got drunk and . . ." 

"You called me by my name that night. In the extremis of your grief and your pain, you almost let it slip." She could not help smiling at the irony of it. "To think I spent the last thirty years feeling jealous of a woman who turned out to be myself. It would seem the _Belain_ have a sense of humor after all." 

"I fail to see the humor in it," Thranduil sighed. "Why now, love? Why, after all these years?" 

"I am nearing the end. My ties to this body are growing weak. Only now can I see past the veil of this mortal flesh." 

His face clouded then. "Lalaithiel, wife, I fear to ask you, but I must; how is it you come to me as a Mortal woman? You did not steal a body. . . ?" 

"I love you, Thranduil," she said, shaking her head. "I would claw my way back from the very Halls of Mandos to be at your side. But I would never do harm to another." 

"Then how . . .?" 

"I did not answer the Call," she said quickly. "When I passed from life, your grief was so great that I hovered near you, but I could not give you ease. I was with you, my love, when you took my body to the _Emyn Duir_ and made me a secret grave in our glen. I watched while you laid me to rest and wept. I feared for you then." 

Thranduil bit his lip and looked away. "I feared for myself. But I could not give in to grief. I had our son, and he needed me." 

"The glen, with its sweet memories of the first time we met and later lay together, held me," she said. "The _faer_ of my folk are in those mountains, and the living ones too, still hidden. They knew you had brought me home. I wandered among them for a while. Time passes strangely for the Houseless, and space too, and so it was for me. Sometimes, I watched you, and our son, as he grew. It seemed to me that once, I saw you among the burning trees, in a great battle. You laughed, as you swung your sword amidst the flames. I thought you mad with the warrior-lust, but I laughed too and stood beside you as you fought." 

"It was not the blood-madness," he said. "I expected that at any moment I might meet my death at the end of some orcish sword, or take an arrow like my father and be allowed at the last to join you, with no shame or shirking of my duty. The thought gave me joy. As for our son, he had gone on a quest that I knew would take him to the Black Gates, to the very spot where _Adar_ fell. For all I knew he no longer lived either." 

"But he lived," she said, "and so did you. And the Wood threw off the Shadow and became green again. My _faer_ haunted the mountain glens, mostly, in our spot or where your father's old palace lay fallen among the trees. But sometimes I would watch the _Edain_ at the edge of the wood. Their lives were so short, yet their spirits were vibrant for all of that. 

"One day, I was drawn to a little hut near the swift river, called by the smell of the blood, or perhaps it was the desperation of two women as they worked over the struggling body of a third. I saw the drama play out, a tiny scrap of a girl-child laid aside in the vain hope that her mother might be saved. The spirit of a man, newly dead, hovered near, and he saw me and called me Lady Starkindler, although I knew not why. I could tell him only to be at peace, that all would be well, for all are in the power of the One, and life and death are all the same." 

There came a knock at the door then, one of the Healers come to tend her. "Leave us!' Thranduil snapped. "I will call when you are needed." He turned to her, all gentleness again. "Go on, dearest. What happened then?" 

"The babe was born before her time, and her spirit was too weak to cling to her body. She let go at the same time as the dying woman gave up her fight. The tender soul of the young one flew to her mother's arms; the father beckoned and enfolded them both, and I saw the family journey on together into the west. I looked at the abandoned body of the infant. I knew my Elven _faer_ could make that still heart beat again, force air into those silent lungs. I knew the strength of my _faer_ could make that body, untimely born, grow and thrive. She was my way back to you, Thranduil, and I had only a moment to think, only one moment to decide. I went into the flesh . . . and forgot." 

"Oh, my love," Thranduil whispered. "Even I would not have had such courage." 

"Yes, but it was a trap. And but for the dreams of a dimly remembered life and the trees whispering to me at night, I might have lived and died in that little village, never finding you." 

He leaned down and kissed her forehead. "For once, Vaire was kind to me. You and I were meant to be." 

"And yet, there has been a price. My _faer_ has burned this poor body out, Thranduil. I am used up." She held up her hand, yellowed and withered; even that effort was almost beyond her strength. "See what this Mortal flesh brought me to." 

"What matters _rhaw_?" he said, brushing back the thin strands of hair from her face. "I see your _faer_. To me, you are the same lovely girl I spied rising from a mountain pool, the drops of water sliding from your naked body like white gems. I fell in love with you in that moment, and I shall love you still at the end of all things, in the hour that the seas run dry and the sun turns the very rocks of Arda into ash. My bondmate, my love . . . my wife." 

"And yet I am flesh, and this flesh fails me." She sighed, for what must come next would tax them both to their limit. "It is time for my draught, Thranduil." 

"Of course," he said, rising from where he knelt and going to the chest of drawers. "I am a fool and a churl not thinking of your comfort." He took up a glass and the phial of dark poppy elixir, preparing to pour. 

"No, my love," she said quietly. "The other draught." 

His shoulders sagged, and his knees gave way just a little, as if he had taken a blow. He turned to her with a look of utter pleading. "No . . ." 

She had seen the blue phial standing apart from the other, over to the back of the chest for the past month and wondered idly in her poppy befogged state, _'Why two?'_ Now that Elven understanding had returned to her, she felt a silent gratitude to Nestalinde. _'Would he have had the strength to do it at need without me forcing the issue?'_ she asked herself. 

"Not now, not yet . . . just when you have returned to me at last," he said, his face crumpling. "You do not know what you ask of me! To lose you again so soon, and by my own hand? Please, wife, stay with me a little longer." 

"Would you force me to lose what dignity I have left and cry out in pain when the strength leaves me to resist? I can tell you that such a time is coming soon. Or would you have me lose my wits and become no more than a suffering beast so that you might hold onto me for a time? I have never known you to be a coward, or to shrink from duty, no matter how painful to yourself." She paused and did her best to smile at him reassuringly. "It has been a good day, but, Thranduil, I am in agony. You must let me go." 

He shut his eyes, set his chin and nodded wearily. Slowly, he took the blue phial and poured its contents into the glass. 

_'Too many defeats he has had,'_ she thought, _'and each does not make the next any easier.'_

He carried the glass over to her and brought her to a partially sitting position. "Are you sure of this, my love?" 

"Very sure, Thranduil." She reached out to stroke his arm through the fabric of his sleeve. "Strength, remember? And the other says Loyalty. These are the promises you made. It is your duty to me. And to your people." 

"Sometimes," he sighed, "I wish I were not a king. I am weary of always having to be strong, dearest; so very weary." He brought the cup to her lips and helped her drink. 

This liquid tasted of astringent herbs that disguised an underlying acridity even more bitter than the juice of the poppies.. It warmed her immediately as it went down and stayed down. "And now, will you hold me until I go to sleep?" 

He nodded, silently again, as if he could not trust his voice. He kicked off his boots and sat cross-legged at the head of the bed, drawing her up into his arms. "Am I hurting you?" he asked. 

"Yes," she answered honestly, "but not so much as would the emptiness of not having your arms about me." Already, her limbs felt heavy, and darkness closed in around her vision like a cloak of night. 

"You must say good-bye to Galion for me," she said, and he nodded. She felt his hair brush her forehead and a warm drop hit her cheek. "Lalaithiel, you once called me; daughter of laughter, and instead I have brought you sadness." Already, speech was becoming difficult and her tongue felt thick, as if it were turning to wood. 

"No," he said, his voice husky. "You brought me joy. I would not have missed this time with you for all the wealth of the Lonely Mountain, Arkenstone included." He kissed her gently. "But my love, you must promise me that you will never risk this again. You must answer the Call of Mandos this time." 

She shook her head. "Not . . . leave you." 

"You must. Our son is in Aman. Once the Dwarf dies, he will be alone. He will need you then. You can pass through Mandos and be re-embodied; it is the only way. I beg you, Lalaithiel -- go to him." 

She tried to answer; tried to get the words out, asking him if he would join them. She no longer had the breath. 

"Please love, you must promise me," he said. 

With the last of her strength, she nodded. The pain, her constant companion for the past months was gone at last. She felt Thranduil's arms about her still, and heard, as if from a great distance, his lovely, lovely voice, as the darkness closed in around her. _"Le i mheleth o chuil nîn . . . "_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Translations:**   
> _herves vuin, na vedui!_ : beloved wife, at last!   
> _faer_ : spirit, Sindarin for fëa   
> _rhaw_ : body, Sindarin for hroa   
> _Le i mheleth o chuil nîn_ : You are the love of my life.


	11. Epilogue: The Sundering Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One last revelation, and a soul heads West . . .

_"Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep,  
He hath awaken'd from the dream of life;" _

_Percy Shelley, Adonais_

 

Dach-nai, awoke from the dream of life and threw off the prison of her mortal body like a worn-out cloak. In ages past, she had been known by the lover-name of Lalaithiel, queen and consort of Thranduil Oropherion, and later as Sigrid, his Mortal concubine, but Dach-nai was her spirit name, given to her in secret by her parents and revealed only to one other at the moment of their bonding. It was her true name before The One, in whose world she walked now. 

Free of the illusion of flesh, she recognized her name at last, but it came as no surprise, for had she not seen the symbol of it written above her husband's heart every day for the past thirty years and for millennia before that? And how she had treasured it, both knowing and unknowing, in the moments of their intimacy, as a living symbol of the vow he had made to her. 

She turned back toward the bed and beheld a golden-haired elf cradling the empty husk of a woman and rocking in silent grief. The sight moved her to pity, but she reined herself back firmly. This had been her snare before, and she dared not give in to it. 

From the west, a song wove its seductive tendrils about her mind, calling her to dark halls that promised rest, surcease and the prospect of return to life. It was through those halls she must pass, for love. 

Behind her lay a golden king. Ahead of her, in the west, lay a golden prince; and in between a dark god who must be obeyed and appeased. Her trembling _faer_ feared the call; to leave the woods that had sheltered her, the shores that had been her home. Just as, in the body of Sigrid the mortal girl, she had hesitated in fear on the banks of the Celduin, unwilling to leave the comforting safety of the trees, she felt uncertain now. Yet the whispered urging of the trees had brought her to her love again. The Call would lead her to her desire if only she were brave enough. 

_'Truly, life in the flesh teaches us lessons, and this one, I have learned.'_ The thought would have made her smile, had she any lips with which to do it. _'Have courage, Dach-nai, you have the strength to do this.'_

She spared one last look back. _'Oh, Thranduil, how I have loved you! But it is my turn to care for our son now.'_ She turned away. His was still the unprofitable strife of the flesh, the long defeat. 

Untrammeled by a body, she moved through the living rock and out into the night air. The forest lay quiet under the heat of summer as she traveled westward. From the dark mountain to the south, whence flowed the Enchanted Stream, the voices of her people called to her. She answered them joyfully but did not turn aside. They, too, must be left behind under the protection of her husband, and she knew he would do it well. 

Below her, the peaks of the Hithlaeglir were beset by a summer thunderstorm, the clouds riven by bright flashes of lightning. Picking up speed, she flew over the darkened land of Eriador, now bereft of Elvenkind, and ahead of her, the bright star of Eärendil burned as a beacon to guide her way to Eternal lands as her _faer_ set out across the sundering sea.

* * *

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author's Notes:** The secret _Avarren_ name of Thranduil's wife, Dach-nai, comes from a translation by Darth Fingon. Thank you Darth!
> 
> The knowledge that Thranduil's wife was _Avarren_ , how they met and courted, and the ultimate cause of her death may be found in greater detail in my stories, When Trees Are Bare and All That Is Gold.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Author's Note:** Literate readers may find that the opening paragraphs of this story bear a passing resemblance to the beginning passages of Daphne du Maurier's novel, Rebecca, with its haunting, 'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.' This was completely intentional, and I am not attempting to deceive. I wrote it closely enough to evoke the feeling, yet with enough difference to make it clear that I am doing the work of writing myself. This was a challenge to myself, and I hope I was successful.
> 
> The opening quote is from the traditional English folksong, The Trees They Do Grow High.
> 
> For those interested in the geography, Sigrid lived on the eastern borders of Eryn Lasgalen, formerly known as Mirkwood, in the area where the River Running, or the Celduin, runs briefly through the woods on its way southeast to the Sea of Rhûn. I judged it would take her about three days to journey on foot north to the Long Lake.


End file.
